marclafountain.com

Early thoughts:

• Amazon is learning from Apple. The Kindle 2 packaging is pretty cool. It uses letters in lots of different typefaces and languages as the first Kindle did. But, The packaging now says “Once Upon a Time…” on an outside edge. And, the external packaging is all black while the internal packaging is all white. It makes for an elegant contrast.
• Text does look crisper in 16 shades of gray instead of four and pictures are much more detailed. Page refreshes do feel slightly faster.
• The five-way controller is a big interface improvement over the earlier silver ribbon.
• I was hoping the new “Whispersync” system would know what books and magazines I had stored on my original Kindle and offer to put them all on the Kindle 2. Instead, I am having to move magazine subscriptions and download books one by one. Not a huge deal, but not elegant either.
• I got the case and I think it’s attractive and holds the Kindle securely. With the original Kindle, I would always read the device out of the case. I’ll be interested see if I still do that or if I leave the Kindle 2 in the case. My guess is I’ll still take it out most of the time.
• Apparently you don’t turn the Kindle 2 off. You just put it to sleep or wake it up. Nice. Edit: Actually, you can turn it off by holding the slider down for four seconds. But, I will probably leave it in sleep most of the time.
• Having a physical switch for wireless on the original Kindle made syncing fast and easy. I will have to see how doing it via a software switch often feels.

Overall, I am very impressed so far.