Existing Kindle owners to the front of the line please
I also like this statement on the Amazon page:
Special Opportunity for Kindle 1 Owners: Even though we’ve increased our manufacturing capacity, we want to be sure our original Kindle owners are first in line to receive Kindle 2. Place your Kindle 2 order by midnight PST on February 10th and you will receive first priority.
The new features of the new Kindle over the existing Kindle include the following:
- Weight reduced from 10.3 to 10 ounces
- Thickness reduced from 0.7 (thickest area) to 0.36 inches
- Display improved with 16 shades of gray compared to 4 shades in Kindle 1.0
- Integrated available 1.4 GB of memory to store 1,500 ebooks (Kindle 1.0 had 180MB and SD card)
- 25% longer battery life
- 5-way controller compared to previous scroll wheel
- Pages turn 20% faster
- New text-to-speech feature (great for visually impaired readers)
- Rear mounted stereo speakers (Kindle 1.0 had a single speaker)
- Whispersync feature (see below for what this is)
These things remain the same:
- Whispernet wireless service, provided by Sprint
- QWERTY keyboard (though it is redesigned in Kindle 2.0)
- 6 inch 600x800 pixels display
- USB 2.0 port
- 3.5mm headset jack
One new feature with this Kindle is Whispersync that lets you switch between different Kindle devices and keep your reading location synchronized. I don't really know why you need two Kindle devices, but if you are an avid reader who has more than one and never wants to run out of battery then maybe you will need this feature. In the slides shown at the launch event, it did state you could use this to sync up the Kindle 1.0, Kindle 2.0 and other mobile devices so maybe we will see Kindle support on the iPhone or other mobile operating system.
I'm not sure if the new Kindle comes with a case in the package of if you will have to buy one from a 3rd party. As I said, I did order one today, but am still not sure it is worth this price when I have a very capable Kindle 1.0 already. Are you ordering a new Kindle? What do you find compelling about it?
A couple things I personally wanted to see in this new Kindle were:
- Larger display (do we need such a large area around the current 6 inch display?)
- Integrated backlight (this may affect the quality though since I don't find the new Sony Reader backlit display to be quite as crisp as the one without a backlight or touchscreen)
I don't think a touchscreen or color display is needed for an ebook reader and the new thickness of the device and design seems much more attractive than Kindle 1.0.