helps you find the perfect gadget. ver. 1.2

"Fresh out the box, the Kindle 2 is a gorgeous looking device — rounded edges with a brushed aluminum back, and ohhhh so thin. Sorry original Kindle fans, we don’t mean to be offensive but the Kindle 2 brings some style to what had previously been a very clumsy-looking device."

"Slimmer and sleeker looking than the original Kindle."

"The updated look meets even Jesus Diaz's strenuous requirements for aesthetic awesomeness."

"The most dramatic changes are in the physical design. Abandoning the quirky shape of the original, which was meant to evoke the form of a real book, the designers boiled down the shape to a pencil-thin (0.36-inch) slab, which feels completely natural in hand."

"The Kindle 2 does away with almost every awkward convention introduced in the original version. The device is now cleanly laid out, very much shaped like a large iPhone; a big rectangle with rounded edges."

"The brushed-aluminum back of the device contrasted with its white face makes the Kindle look like an Apple-designed product—which is a compliment. In our hands, it felt more like a premium slate than an awkward, big plastic device like the original Kindle."

"Despite its thin profile, the Kindle 2 feels very solid and not at all flimsy."

"The hardware itself, however, is lovely. It's small, relatively light and beautifully built."

"The back is now flat and smooth brushed aluminum, with a set of stereo speakers along the bottom, and a strip of gray rubber up top…. Besides being evened out and pulled in, the Kindle 2 is also astonishingly thin -- just 0.36-inches -- which makes it a pleasure to carry, though we miss some of the bulk of the original for reading duties."

"It felt more like a premium slate than an awkward, big plastic device like the original Kindle.... We highly recommend getting a cover since the display may get bumped around or scratched by keys inside a purse or backpack. "

"Slimmer rounded aluminum-backed body."

"More functional industrial design."

"Part of the reason for the elongation is that Amazon has devoted a bit more space to the keyboard, with some additional room between the keys and a more simplified, streamlined look (the keys are circular and the space bar is longer and better placed). This was a good move, as the keyboard is easier to use."

"Although the device still isn't a breeze to type on, the new keyboard does make it easier to enter text. It's perfect for typing in an author, title, or key phrase to find in the Amazon Kindle Store, or for kicking off a search of all of your Kindle documents."

"The Kindle 2 provides several different methods for annotating the text within a book, allowing you to add a note to a portion of the text, highlight a portion of the text or bookmark a page.... The Kindle 2 indicates the specialized status of the text by displaying a folded page corner for a bookmark, a superscript number for a note or an underline beneath the text for a highlight. Pretty nifty."

"My Clippings, on the home screen, displays your typed notes and favorite clippings from books and places them in an organized page view with the date you read the book and the time you made the note."

"A new QWERTY keyboard with rounded keys is a pleasant addition to the new Kindle, which you can use to create notes, search, enter Web addresses, and more. The space bar is comfortably front and center instead of off to the left like before."

"The keyboard has gone from that unnatural, slanted arrangement to a standard, familiar keyboard layout, and the keys are now small and round instead of rectangular pellets."

"While it lacks books' individuality and charm, it adds features such as the ability to annotate and search ebooks, and look up words in a dictionary."

"The Kindle 2 lets you create clippings and annotations simply by clicking on text and entering notes with the keyboard. The notes will then travel with the document and be accessible on your Kindle or on your PC. These may seem like small features, but they are true enhancements to the reading experience."

"The interface on the Kindle 2 is functional and easy to use, with a few caveats. The home screen of the device shows all of the books in a single list; unfortunately there aren't any folders or other organizational tools to make browsing your collection any easier."

"Although the joystick is a big improvement on the track wheel on the original Kindle, a touch screen would enhance this product dramatically. Although the Home/Menu buttons are good guides, using the joystick to scroll through lists of options is a drag."

"The Kindle 2 moves to a five-way rocker button that's more straightforward and helps solve some--but not all--of the quirky navigational issues the device has. Amazon has made some nice tweaks to the interface and has made it easier to access the embedded dictionary to look up words, but it's far from a total revamp."

"Interface is improved, sure, but it could be even better."

"In general, menus seem cleaned up and organized a bit better, with less items to move through and more succinct descriptions of functions. Additionally, the look and feel of the UI has been given an update, forgoing some of the more extraneous graphic bits and more clearly defining sections, like the info bar up top and the page information along the bottom."

"The added Home button gives quick access to the home screen, instead of having to search for the small Home icon on the keyboard…. We preferred the scroll wheel on the first Kindle for quickly scrolling through pages instead of having to push down repeatedly, but the new controller allows for more precise movement."

"In a fully lit room or in the sunlight, the Kindle display is perfectly crisp and the glare is minimal making the Kindle 2 a real pleasure to read."

"The Kindle 2 uses "e-ink" technology, which serves to make the letters and words on the screen look more printlike in their appearance. A lot of people, when they first see the screen, are genuinely impressed. The e-ink screen delivers 16 shades of gray and offers user-adjustable font sizes."

"Reading the Kindle 2 over two days of commuting was a pleasure. The display doesn’t induce headaches or eyesores like a computer monitor would; the text is, instead, crisp yet soft and reminiscent of a page in a book."

"The improved graphics with eye-friendly e-ink display complete the package, offering an experience outdone only by a physical book.... The dense, readable display and paperback size allow readers to sink into an author's world just as they do with a physical tome."

"Reading books with the Kindle 2 is easy, but not quite as fluid as on the Sony’s competing Digital Reader PRS-700. In fact, it’s easier to become engrossed in a book and not fumble with controls on the PRS-700."

"With the Kindle 2 I feel like we are just starting to see what e-book readers are capable of. Yes, they can display text for hours on end, but they can also fundamentally enhance the reading process. For example, one feature I found myself using all the time was the dictionary."

"The processor in this model is faster [than the Kindle 1], so the screen refreshes about 20 percent quicker between page turns. All and all, the thing just feels zippier, but it's important to note that while you'd think that a monochrome system would be lightning fast at this point, the Kindle 2 still exhibits some slight lag."

"You can see in the video that page turning is still painfully slow, and would need to be 100 or 1000 times faster to mean anything. Going from Kindle 1 to Kindle 2, the experience stays the same—there are no new convenience features that actually help you read books more easily."

"The screen is the same 6-inch, high-resolution E-Ink display, which has a comforting contrast ratio for reading and uses battery power only when you turn the page. But, while it still can't display color and still can't be read in the dark, its gray-shade graphics are much more detailed."

"Select any book or magazine and the Kindle 2 will read it aloud to you using the stereo speakers on the back of the device. The voice is pretty robotic—more Stephen Hawking than HAL—but it works. You also have options for control the tempo of the reading, and choose a male or female voice."

"Because the speakers don't sound great, you probably wouldn't want to listen to music this way, but they do just fine with Text-to-Speech, a new "experimental" feature that allows you to have text read to you. While there's still a pronounced robotic element to it--you can switch between male and female digitized voices--it sounded better than we expected."

"If you have visions dancing in your head of turning every book into an audiobook, forget it. The Kindle’s male and female voices are very good, but nobody will mistake them for the voices of humans, let alone the professionals who record audiobooks."

"The ridiculous computer voice with an Eastern European accent that is impossible to listen to for more than three paragraphs (at least you can stop and start it by pressing spacebar)."

"I found the text-to-speech implementation perfectly listenable, with only a slight electronic accent (the computer-generated reader apparently is a distant cousin of the Lost in Space robot). The feature would be even better if the built-in speakers weren't on the back of the device, muffling the sound if you place it screen up on a flat surface."

"For our money, the text-to-speech option is a nice novelty, but not remotely useful for prolonged readings, or readings of anything but the most simplistic material. This is the "computer voice" we've come to know and love -- nothing more, nothing less, and it's not exactly pleasant."

"Overall, the voice feature sounded too robotic. When using this feature for reading a book, the emotion and context of the story was utterly lost…. The pace of the voice seemed inconsistent; it spoke some words quickly and others slowly, so sentences sound like words strung together out of context."

"The battery is also sealed inside, à la iPhone. Amazon says, however, that it lasts 25 percent longer per charge (four days of reading with wireless turned on, or two weeks if it’s off). If that battery ever needs replacing, Amazon has to do it ($60)."

"The good news is Amazon says the battery now delivers about 25 percent more battery life, which should give you a few days of reading (with the wireless on) and two weeks with it turned off. We found the battery life to be quite good, and confirm that if you keep the wireless access to a minimum, you won't have to recharge for close to two weeks."

"Amazon claims it delivers 25 percent longer battery life. In real-world terms, that means you can read for two weeks with the EV-DO modem turned off, or four to five days with it turned on. I have been using it nonstop for the last three days and it still has more than half a charge. The Kindle 2 charges via micro USB cable, so you don't need to lug around a proprietary AC adapter."

"It flaunts a more powerful built-in battery: Amazon claims that the Kindle lasts four to five days with the wireless on and up to two weeks with it off. After a week of limited wireless, my meter is around 50 percent. Amazon also says that after 500 charges, it will hold 80 percent of its original juice. That means that most users won't have to replace the battery for about a decade or so."

"Excellent battery life."

"Epic battery life (many days)."

"The battery is now sealed in, but it is larger. Amazon claims you can read for four or five days with the wireless turned on, or up to two weeks with it turned off. In my tests, those claims proved true. I took the Kindle on a trip for a week with the wireless turned off and the battery indicator barely budged."

"The Kindle 2 shares the original's general form factor, but it's slimmer, lighter, and features an improved keypad arrangement."

"Besides being evened out and pulled in, the Kindle 2 is also astonishingly thin -- just 0.36-inches -- which makes it a pleasure to carry, though we miss some of the bulk of the original for reading duties."

"Thin form factor makes Kindle 2 easy to carry around."

"The Kindle 2 is thinner than the original Kindle--it measures a svelte 0.36 inch at its thickest point--and weighs 10.2 ounces. That's basically the same as the 2009 lineup of Sony Reader models."

"While you may not think of e-books as fashionable, you’ll change your mind when you hold the Kindle 2. It’s much more slender than the original. At just 0.36 inches thick, it’s almost twice as thin as the first Kindle and weighs a similar 10.2 ounces."

"It's small, relatively light and beautifully built."

"There are two tiny speaker ports on the back of the Kindle 2 that give you external audio. Because the speakers don't sound great, you probably wouldn't want to listen to music this way. Like the earlier model, this one can play back MP3 and AAC files (as well as Audible audio book files), but 2GB is pretty skimpy when you start getting into multiple albums with high bit rates."

"The Kindle 2 makes transferring songs to the device relatively simple. Unplug one end of the Kindle 2 cable from its small power adapter and plug it into your PC. We transferred two Radiohead tracks over to the device and played them back using the MP3 player. Music played loud and clear through the Kindle 2’s two speakers."

"The same applies to the MP3 player. It works and provides decent-quality background music through the small speakers, but don’t fire it up expecting to be wowed."

"You can load the device with MP3 files, audiobooks, and podcasts as well, although it’s somewhat of an afterthought because there are no dedicated music control buttons."

"Picture support on the Kindle 2 is improved significantly over the first generation, largely due to the increased greyscale support from four to sixteen levels. The device isn't made to view pictures on, obviously, but it's certainly manageable for newspaper and magazine content (though most pictures in the subscriptions are sadly omitted) or if you want to show off a couple of baby pictures at work."

"Amazon has upped the amount of onboard memory to 2GB (from 256MB), so you can store up to 1,500 books or assorted newspaper and blog subscriptions, as well as JPEG images. But unfortunately, taking a cue from Apple, it left out an expansion slot for additional memory."

"Inside, Amazon has axed the SD slot in favor of putting 2GB of storage onboard. We would have preferred that they had given us the option of both, but 2GB should be more than enough for most people's book / newspaper needs, and since you can offload as you like while retaining the material, it doesn't strike us as a huge issue."

"The big Kindle breakthrough was its wireless connection. Thanks to Sprint’s cellular Internet service, the Kindle is always online: indoors, outdoors, miles from the nearest Wi-Fi hot spot. This sort of service costs $60 a month for laptops, but Amazon pays the Kindle’s wireless bill, in hopes that you’ll buy e-books spontaneously."

"The Web-surfing experience wasn't all that good (there's no Flash or video support), but we were able to access Web sites and read articles, albeit somewhat slowly. In our tests in New York, the connection was impressively fast, with quick downloads of books from the Kindle Store and documents e-mailed to the device in around 10 to 15 seconds."

"We loaded the text-only BBC News page in about 8 seconds and appreciated the formatting. Just as with digital newspapers, though, to scroll farther down the page, you have to hit Next Page instead of just scrolling down.... The Kindle 2 isn’t meant to be a Web-browsing device, however, so we’ll forgive its mediocrity."

"The web browser works but don’t expect a Safari or even Opera Mobile-like experience here. You’re looking at a browser for mobile web sites only, and it’s a bit sluggish and clunky to navigate. Despite its unpolished nature, the browser does work and is convenient if you really need to check out the latest news headlines, read/post to a forum or search Wikipedia."

"There’s also a way to browse the Web, which means you can check your e-mail on the device – and even have the speech-to-text read your messages."

"There is still a crude Web browser built in -- but this gadget is mainly for reading books."

"The Kindle catalog is bigger, too; now [300,000+] books are available. New York Times bestsellers are $10 each, which is less than the hardcover editions. Older books run $3 to $6. That said, Amazon is still a long way from its “any book, any time” goal…"

"It also has a free wireless connection to the Amazon Kindle store -- now hawking 230,000 books (as well as magazines and newspapers). The day after I got the new Kindle I boarded an airplane and before the doors closed, browsed the store and purchased Thomas Perry's thriller Runner. The book uploaded within 30 seconds and I was absorbed in it for the entire five-hour plus transcontinental ride."

"You can browse books by genre with almost every category broken down into subcategory upon subcategory. You can also view the National Bestsellers list, a new and noteworthy book list and the top Kindle books as ranked by Amazon."

"Large library of tens of thousands of e-books, newspapers, magazines, and blogs via Amazon's familiar online store."

"Amazon assigns each Kindle a dedicated e-mail address, so you can send Word, TXT, HTML, or PDF files to it. Unfortunately, Amazon charges 10 cents for each conversion if you decide to have it sent directly to the Kindle 2 over Whispernet."

"The one thing that the Kindle 2 just doesn't do as well is handle PDF and Word files. If you're really looking a more PDF-friendly device, you should probably consider a larger e-reader, such as Amazon's pricier Kindle DX, which has native PDF support and a 9.7-inch screen."

"Right now at least, the Google and Amazon formats aren't compatible: I was unsuccessful in getting a PDF of a public domain book downloaded from Google to appear in readable form on my Kindle."

"Converts many different document types."

"There is no native PDF support—even of unprotected files—in this version of the Kindle. Also, although the Kindle 2 can store your own files, you still need to upload them to the Amazon service for conversion at a price of 10 cents each. I have used the service with both .DOC and PDF files and was generally happy with the conversion."

"The Kindle still doesn't work with some of the open e-book formats that other devices support."

"As before, your books, annotations and clippings are auto-backed up on Amazon.com. But now, if you buy multiple Kindles (dream on, Amazon), all of them remember where you stopped reading in each book…"

"Amazon's Whispernet network was the quiet secret that made the Kindle a huge success; there is simply no better way to buy e-books. Turn on your EV-DO modem, and the Kindle will automatically connect to the Amazon.com store. From there, any book in the Kindle catalog can be downloaded in less than 60 seconds."

"Kindle makes it easy to take your personal documents with you, eliminating the need to print. Each Kindle has a unique and customizable e-mail address…. This allows you and your approved contacts to e-mail Word, PDF documents, and pictures wirelessly to your Kindle for a small per document fee--currently only 10 cents per document."

"The Kindle 2 runs on Sprint’s 3G EV-DO network, called Whispernet, which means you don’t need a PC to load it up with content. The integrated Internet connection enables users to download books on the go, even in places with no Wi-Fi coverage, like in a car, for example."

"Amazon assigns each Kindle a dedicated e-mail address, so you can send Word, TXT, HTML, or PDF files to it. Unfortunately, Amazon charges 10 cents for each conversion if you decide to have it sent directly to the Kindle 2 over Whispernet. We suggest transferring docs from your computer to the Kindle for free, especially since Amazon doesn’t guarantee that complex PDF’s will format correctly."

"The biggest advantage the Kindle has over its competition is Whispernet, the wireless connectivity that makes browsing and buying books ridiculously simple."

"If you have content on your computer that you wish to place on the Kindle, you have a couple of different options: you can connect the Kindle via USB and transfer it directly to internal memory, or you can pay ten cents to have Amazon email it directly to the device."

Amazon was ranked #4 in customer service among all U.S. retailers in a 2009 National Retail Federation Foundation survey of 8,600 consumers. Amazon has been ranked in the top 5 in customer service in this survey every year since 2006.

Amazon was the top-rated e-commerce site according to an annual survey on holiday shopping satisfaction conducted by ForeSee Results in December, 2009.

Amazon ranked 4th out of 113 companies for their customer experience according to a survey of 4,500 consumers conducted by Forrester Research in April 2009.

"Based on BBB files, this business has a BBB Rating of A+ on a scale from A+ to F."

On their website, Amazon's Kindle return policy states: "You can return your Kindle for a full refund within 30 days of the day you received it as long as it is in new condition and in accordance with our return policy. Your Kindle is not eligible for return and refund after the 30-day return period has expired." Amazon's general return policy states that: "You may return most new, unopened items sold and fulfilled by Amazon.com within 30 days of delivery for a full refund. We'll also pay the return shipping costs if the return is a result of our error. Items should be returned in their original product packaging. Just visit our online Returns Center, and we will guide you through the process and even supply you with a return mailing label you can print out."

On their website, Amazon's Kindle warranty policy states: "We warrant the Device against defects in materials and workmanship under ordinary consumer use for one year from the date of original retail purchase. During this warranty period, if a defect arises in the Device, and you follow the instructions for returning the Device, we will, at our option, either (i) repair the Device using either new or refurbished parts, (ii) replace the Device with a new or refurbished Device, or (iii) refund the purchase price of the Device. This limited warranty applies to any repair, replacement part or replacement Device for the remainder of the original warranty period or for ninety days, whichever period is longer. All replaced parts and Devices for which a refund is given shall become our property. This limited warranty applies only to hardware components of the Device that are not subject to accident, misuse, neglect, fire or other external causes, unauthorized use, alterations or repair, or commercial use."