Hands on with Kindle 2: what a difference a screen makes
(Amazon Kindle 2 - review)

By putting a newer and faster version of the E-Ink screen in the latest version of the Kindle, Amazon has been able to make huge leaps in the usability of the device.

I had the chance to do a brief hands-on with the Kindle 2 after its introduction today; in contrast to last time around, review copies were not available to the press. I've gone on record with a list of complaints about the first generation version, and suggested that there may have been little Amazon could do, given its reliance on E-Ink for that hardware. It appears that E-Ink has come through for them in a big way, and the Kindle 2 is a far better device as a result.

The new version displays more shades of grey than were previously possible, and Amazon has paired that with a set of updated fonts to make the text significantly crisper and easier to read. But it's the speed of the display that makes everything different. Amazon claims a 20 percent improvement in page flips, but it's clear that the operating system is very capable of redrawing only subsets of the screen—perhaps the software is smarter about that than it was previously, it's impossible to tell. In any case, the result is that anything done on the screen is very much faster—moving the cursor, selecting text, typing, menus, you name it. It's really hard to convey just how much more responsive the device feels.

The new layout of controls on Kindle 2

Because Amazon can do more on the screen, it was able to revamp a lot of the rest of the interface. The LCD strip on the right side of Kindle 1, which was used for selecting text and menu items, and sporadically for indicating progress, is gone, and good riddance. In killing it, Amazon has gotten rid of some of the worst of its interface inconsistencies, and more closely linked controlling the device to its primary screen. The faster display has allowed a cursor to be moved around the screen, and highlighting of selected text, items, and menus to be performed there, as well, all of which makes for a better interface.

Since the controls can now operate on the two dimensions of the screen, the click wheel that controlled the first generation device is gone, replaced by a five-way nub controller that acts much like the nipple in the keyboard of the old Thinkpads. It's a bit small for my thumbs, but I expect that longer periods of use would get me comfortable with it.

Physically, the most striking aspect of the device is its thickness—it really is remarkably thin, and the sleek metal back (reminiscent of the first-generation iPhone) is very appealing. It still feels quite robust, however. Amazon clearly listened to its customers' feedback when it comes to the large buttons that graced the sides of the original Kindle, which made it far too easy to accidentally advance a page. They're gone, and the smaller buttons that replace them pivot inwards, meaning that grabbing the edge of the device can't advance a page, even if you hit the smaller buttons.

The downside of this is that the screen, largely unchanged in size, really appears to be swimming in a sea of white plastic now, since there are wide margins between it and the edge on the upper third of the device. The bottom quarter still contains the keyboard. When asked about an on-screen keyboard, an Amazon staffer said that the company thinks on-screen keyboards cause more problems than they solve, especially given it's the primary reading surface, so that's unlikely to go away.

That said, it did get a facelift for Kindle 2. Because of the faster screen, characters like punctuation and symbols are selected on-screen using the pointer after hitting an Alt button, meaning each key only handles one character now, which gives it a cleaner look. The layout of keys, however—a QWERTY arrangement but with the keys in vertical columns, instead of offset between rows—left me completely lost. Having gone from typing on an iPhone to this keyboard, which requires a fair bit of pressure before a physical click is felt, was also disorienting. The backspace and return keys were also on top of each other, which caused me other problems. Unlike the pointer, I'm not sure I could get used to this with time; in my short hands on, I really hated it.

Stylish brushed metal appears on the
 side you don't look at.

As we mentioned before, a lot more action happens on screen, and the software has been updated in many ways to reflect that. Some of the content, like newspaper articles, has also seen an update to make it easier to navigate and get a quick feel for a story. Music and Web browsing still reside in the "Experimental" section, and are joined by the new text-to-speech feature. The biggest feature, software-wise, seems to be the new, "Whispersync" feature, which can be triggered with a menu command. This will get both a user's content and location within it—book and page—coordinated between different Kindles. We've confirmed that it has been added to Kindle 1 devices through a firmware update today.

Jeff Bezos hinted in his product intro that it will eventually work with content "on other mobile devices," but my attempts to get anyone from Amazon to talk about that went nowhere, or rather led into a thicket of answers about how the company wasn't ready to make forward-looking statements.

Overall, I have to say that the Kindle 2 is a far superior device to the first iteration, and really shows an attention to detail that, based on the earlier device, it wasn't clear that Amazon had in it. More significantly, perhaps, is the fact that the company has clearly made sensible fixes to many of the problems, which demonstrates a clear commitment to listening to its customers. The changes give me hope that, when the hardware's ready, the remaining issues (primarily the keyboard and the small screen) will be fixed. It makes me anxious to see what's in store for Kindle 3.

Related links:

• Reviews Amazon Kindle 2