Amazon's new Kindle 2, please read me a story
NEW YORK -- The Kindle 2 is sleeker and faster, stores more books and keeps a charge longer. Plus, there's an extra twist: It talks.
Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos today unveiled the company's upgraded reading device, which ships Feb. 24. He promised that the newest iteration of the electronic book would further enhance the long-form reading experience.
"There are some things that can only be taught, only be understood, in a few hundred pages," Bezos told journalists crowded in a theater at a midtown library.
The e-book has drawn a cult following since it was introduced in November 2007. Retailing for $359, Kindle 2 is available for pre-order today.
The new version measures just 0.36 inches thick, the diameter of a pencil, and weighs a little more than 10 ounces.
"The Kindle is designed to disappear so that you can enter the author’s world," Bezos said, calling it "a seamless, integrated reading experience -- it’s not just a device."
He said the Kindle 2 screen provides more crispness, using 16 shades of gray instead of just four, and has 25% more battery life, allowing users to read up to two weeks on a single charge. The upgraded edition has seven times more storage space, holding more than 1,500 books, and faster page turns than its predecessor. A new navigation system allows for better note-taking and easier reading of newspapers.
But perhaps its most novel aspect is the text-to-speech feature, which enables Kindle users to ...
... listen to their material.
"Any book, blog, magazine, personal document could be read aloud to you," said Bezos, as he had a Kindle 2 read the opening lines of the Gettsyburg Address with crisp, staccato enunciation.
The second-generation reading device got a plug from author Stephen King, who took the stage to read an excerpt from "Ur," a novella he wrote at Amazon’s request for the launch of the new Kindle. In the story, a college English professor who is wedded to books finally tries out a Kindle, only to have the device open a portal to supernatural experiences. As Jacket Copy blogger Carolyn Kellogg wrote this morning, "For King, who's made a habit of writing more than his publishers can keep up with, these new venues provide a way of getting his writing out into the world instead of waiting until it's time for a new book."
“You’re going to like this gadget,” King told the audience. “But you’re going to like books, too. It isn’t as though the two things are in conflict with one another. They’re like peanut butter and chocolate –- when you put them together, you’ve got a whole new tasty treat.”
Bezos said an explosion of material now available on the Kindle -– 230,000 books and counting -- has made the device even more relevant. “Our vision is every book, ever printed, in any language, all available in less than 60 seconds,” he said. “We’re making progress.”
-- Matea Gold
Interesting but pricey. And you have to pay for most books. Paper is forever(couple hundered years). Electronic book can be gone with format change, bad device, etc. Try it is you have money to burn. I will continue to use library and paperbacks.
Posted by: Alejandro Salazar | February 09, 2009 at 11:08 AM
Well, no, you only have to pay for new books. There are huge libraries out there of free e-books - out of copyright classics, science fiction etc....and once you have them, they are yours. Plus, any that you purchase from Amazon are stored at Amazon, ready for redownloading as often as you would like.
And quite frankly, given the very poor binding quality on newer books, I would be surprised if any of them last 50 years, much less 200. The Harry Potter books are an example of poor binding...the paperbacks fall apart within a couple of readings, and the hardbacks aren't much better.
Posted by: A Mom | February 09, 2009 at 12:35 PM
I am very interested in Kindle, but am still waiting for these books to be DRM free. It's just so much easier and "thought-free" when I don't have to worry about DRM and how I use something. The higher the resolution, the better it is too. We are nowhere near true 300-dpi but that's a technical limitation at this point.
Speaking of DRM-free, Amazon does have an awesome MP3 store that is DRM-free with a large selection and often good prices. It would be nice if they had the same thing with books.
On the note about Amazon, I recently came across an interesting table that details the discounts on Amazon at http://www.uberi.com
Maybe someone will find it useful too.
Anyway, Amazon appears to be quite serious this time. We will probably see faster advancements in this area in the near future as competition heats up.
Posted by: John | February 10, 2009 at 06:55 PM
Yes PLEASE! I really want someone to post a review using a complex journal article displayed on a PDF reader. You find one that can display two columns' worth of text, graphics, tables, and math correctly, and you have a sale.
Posted by: kindledx | May 19, 2009 at 12:52 AM