Kindle 2 Sets New Standards

Check these neat features:

- longer battery life

- a joystick controller

- thinner profile

- text to speech

- ability to snyc between devices and know where you left off

- a metal back

- standard round keys

- the same price of the model it replaces

Amazon’s newest version of its popular e-book reader is not only more attractive. It has a simpler interface featuring a new joystick controller. The Kindle 2 is thinner than an iPhone, has a crisp black-and-white display, turns pages much more quickly, and should boasts a stronger battery that lasts 25 percent longer.

Amazon is taking preorders now. Amazon customers already on the waiting list for the old Kindle will get new Kindle 2.

With text-to-speech built in, any book, blog, magazine or personal document can be read aloud. This lets you switch between reading text and hearing it read by a computerized voice.

The joystick-like device uses a five-way controller to highlight a word and display it's definition.

Whispersync is another new feature. You can read a book on one device and switch to reading the same book on another device, and Amazon will keep track of where you left off in the book.

The Kindle 2 has redesigned page-turning buttons along its sides, a thinner profile, a metal back, and standard round keys — none of the angular weirdness of the original model. The device has seven times the memory capacity of the Kindle 1, but it’s half as thick. It has 16 shades of gray, crisper photos, clear text, 25 percent faster page turns and 25 percent more battery life. You can read for 2 weeks on a single charge, Amazon claims.

The original Kindle, a $359 gadget that can wirelessly download books, periodicals and blogs, has been out of stock since November when Oprah Winfrey gave it her golden endorsement.

Amazon has thus far declined to say how many Kindles it has sold, though a Citibank analyst, Mark Mahaney, has pegged sales at around 500,000 units. Mr. Mahaney also noted that Amazon, unlike Apple and the iPod, must succeed with the Kindle or face the inevitable deterioration of its original business – selling and shipping books, made of good old-fashioned paper, through the mail.