I read, I read a lot.  And I love electronic gizmos and gadgets.  So I’m a natural target for the Amazon Kindle e-book reader.  Which probably explains why I was so upset when Amazon fell so far behind in fulfilling orders at the end of 2008.  Since I had decided that I wanted to try the Kindle, I wanted it now!  I was tired of having to wait for books to arrive after ordering them and tired of trying to find increasingly scarce shelf space to keep them on.  In short, I was ready to convert to electronic books.

Instead, I waited (but not patiently) for Amazon to announce their new version – the Kindle 2.  As soon as they did, I ordered one.  And what do you know?  My Kindle 2 arrived today! 

I walked home, opened the screen door, and the Amazon box tipped over and fell on the welcome mat.  I looked in surprise – as I didn’t remember ordering a book from Amazon lately, picked it up, opened my front door, and thought “Surely this isn’t the Kindle – it’s such a small package.”  (Note my glasses on the box to provide some sense of scale.)

The cardboard box had a pull off strip with the words “Once upon a time…” printed on it.  I pulled it off and opened the box to see a black box with another pull off strip – which also had the words “Once upon a time…” printed on it.  Nice packaging!  Surely this must be the Kindle!  I opened the wrapper and there it was. 

Amazon’s “New Wireless Reading Device” is amazingly light, easy to operate, and comfortable to use.  In less than a minute I had it plugged in to charge it and was reading the personalized letter from Jeff Bezos that came already installed.  Yes, each Kindle 2 is personalized for the buyer (if they have an Amazon.com account and are not purchasing it as a gift). 

 I read the on-line “how to” manual which was well written and thorough and then went to the on-line Kindle Store and downloaded a free sample chapter from Malcolm Gladwell’s new book “Outliers.”  The download was essentially instantaneous – as soon as I selected the book and pressed the sample chapter button, I went back to the menu and it was already downloaded on the Kindle.  I read it too.  All in all a half hour of reading zipped by with effortless ease.  No tired eyes, no tired hands, no problems operating it. 

 The Kindle 2 design seems so good initially that you would not be surprised to see it labelled with a Mac Apple logo – it’s that good!  As an example, note the power cord in the following photo.  It consists of a USB cable that you can use to connect the Kindle to your PC to transfer files and etc. and an adapter that allows you to plug the same cord into an electrical outlet to charge the Kindle.  One cord instead of two – and it’s built so that it works in foreign countries with the proper plug adapter – it handles the different voltages automatically.

Yes, the design features are very good - except.  Except for two irritating problems.  Using the Kindle’s advanced features involve using their “5-way controller”.  You can see it in the first photo as the small square button on the lower right of the device just to the right of the keyboard.  You slide this button from the side in four directions (up, down, left, and right) to highlight the preferred menu option, and then push the button to select it.  It’s cumbersome and awkward. 

The other annoying feature is due to the “electronic paper” technology that makes the Kindle so easy to read.  Every time you page forward or backward, the screen temporarily goes dark, and then the new page displays.  To its credit, it does this quickly, but there’s still the irritating sequence:  press the page button, the screen flashes dark, and the new screen pops up.  It’s at this point that the obvious book analogy that makes the Kindle 2 so attractive fails.  When you turn the page of a book, there’s no black flash.  I found that this got more irritating over time, not less.

The Kindle 2 does a number of other things satisfactorily.  It plays MP3s and it does non-graphically intense Internet browsing.  It allows you to copy passages and transfer them to your PC.  It allows you to annotate and make notes using the all-thumbs keyboard.  And Amazon.com makes an archive of every book you download, with notes and annotations, as well as the last seven issues of any periodicals you subscribe to on the Kindle so that if you have to replace the unit, you still have all your electronic materials. 

I have been waiting for the Kindle 2 for a long time and am really quite impressed with the device overall.  But it comes with a 30 day return period and at this point I don’t know if I’ll keep it or not.  The screen is very readable but rather small – smaller than a typical paperback.  And that means a lot of paging and that means a lot of dark flashes.  I guess there are still advantages to real books after all.