I got a chance to get up close with the Kindle 2 over the holidays… Until recently, that’s been pretty hard to do here in Australia.
My verdict: Super impressed!
The eInk screen is very comfortable to read, although I didn’t get a chance to use it in the sun (as it rained in QLD pretty much the whole time).
What I like about the Kindle 2:
- Super thin
- Very light – easy to hold for long periods of time
- Easy to read
- Long battery life…
What I don’t like about the Kindle 2:
- Still very limited selection of titles in Australia. It’s getting better, but still not good enough
- Scrolling control / jog dial – could take a lesson from the old HP TC1100 jog dial
- Lack of touch input
- Device is locked in Apple style…
Pros outweigh the cons as far as I’m concerned. The Kindle 2 will do much to attract people to e-reading.
What I’m really excited about is the prospect of using a Tablet PC or UMPC that fills this form factor. No, I don’t want it to run some dumbed down mobile phone OS like Google Chrome or Windows Mobile either… I want full Windows on it. I want it to replace my desktop like my Motion J3400 does… Can’t wait for that – It’s only a matter of time.
