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I was at the Kindle 2 press conference today, here are some photos and a video (40 minutes). Some quick hits...
- 16 shades of gray (previous kindle was 4)
- new five way rocker
- live dictionary as you read
- "read to me" text to speech
- screen is 20% faster
- super tiny form factor, nice design, iphonelike
- 25% more battery life 2 weeks on one charge
- ships 2/24, $359
- whispersync / wireless bookingmarking allows you to pick up where you left off reading on any device (pc/mac/iphone?)
- to get a PDFs/txt files on the device you mail it to yourself, it gets converted that's the only way.
Not exactly ready for the pages of MAKE, but getting closer!
yay for more commercial product advertisements on the make blog!
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I say go ahead and shill for the Kindle. Normally, I'd get upset if somebody randomly posts an unrelated product on his blog, but I have to make an exception for the Kindle. This new version looks sexy. Besides that, if people started reading more, the world would be a better place. Still, for my money, I'd go with my trusty Sony PRS. You can actually download books to your reader via a USB cable, and it still works if you go outside of America. (By the way, I'm not a paid shill... strictly unpaid :-) I just think that if you unload $300-400 on an ebook reader, you're probably going to do some heavy-duty reading, and we need more people like you.)
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@Bob D - "commercial product advertisements" would imply we received "something" - we did not. let me break it down for you - MAKE has never been on the kindle, we do not receive any money for posting about it, i went to the press conference and thought it was cool. we cover gadgets here too and a lot of makers are interested in e-ink.
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"to get a PDFs/txt files on the device you mail it to yourself, it gets converted that's the only way."
That doesn't sound accurate.
The Kindle 2 supports USB connection to a PC or MAC. The original Kindle also did and PDFs/TXT files could be converted using various tools (Mobipocket, for one) and uploaded manually. I believe the Kindle supports the Mobipocket .PRC format which has many conversion tools available.
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@malweth.myopenid.com - the kindle cannot read a PDF unless it goes through amazon - this was according to 2 product managers and reps at amazon.
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Here's a how-to and related discussion on converting PDFs to Kindle:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18968
It seems straightforward and solves many of the problems people complain of using Amazon's service (images & equations).
-- Once I get over the cost I'll pick up a Kindle!
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