Hasta La Gadget!

Perhaps I posted too soon. Moments after I spent a few paragraphs lamenting the lack of a color screen on the new Kindle, our editor-in-chief sent me a link to a news piece about Fujitsu’s new ebook reader. The new reader features a much larger screen–about the size of a standard screen. Better still, the thing’s in color.

The device is based on Fujitsu’s FLEPia technology, utilizing wireless data management. The reader is a skinny 12-mm thick and features Wi-Fi, USB 2.0, an SD slot, speakers, Windows CE5, 50 hours of battery life, and a touchscreen instead of a keyboard.

This device seems to trump the Kindle 2 in every way, except for one key point: price. The Fujitsu e-reader will run you around $900, which make the Kindle’s steep $360 price tag look like chump change. Looks like I won’t be reading comics on it any time soon.

The Kindle 2 is here folks — it should look pretty familiar at this point! Feast your eyes on the photos. We’re building out with more photos and video, so stay tuned. We played for the unit for the briefest of moments, but it really does feel great in hand. The brushed metal back is great, the device is incredibly light and comfortable to hold, and the keyboard is fairly usable. We’re not convinced the five-way joystick is the best they possible could’ve worked into this space — a d-pad seems much more logical — but it’s responsive and comfortable enough to twiddle with for what it is. Here’s some thoughts:

• The five-way rocker is definitely a step up in terms of navigation — it makes getting around pages way easier by allowing you to skip through individual words, and you can actually navigate simple web pages the way you’re used to.
• The new dictionary pop up (it brings up your definition on the bottom of the screen as you’re scrolling through text) is a huge win. It was a pain before, but looking up words is now super easy. Unfortunately — according to Ross Rubin — footnotes are still handled in the slow, laborious way they’ve always been.
• Text-to-speech is a nice touch, but it’s still hard to get over that computer voice. We can see using this to hear a recipe or short news article, but we’re not convinced it’ll be enjoyable for a full novel.
• Screen refresh is way, way faster than the old model (they say 20 percent). The difference is welcome and noticeable. Moving through documents and back and forth between pages is a snap now. If you’ve been frustrated with the slowness before, this will be a big relief.
• The size difference is pretty remarkable. If you loved the crazy old design, you’ll be disappointed, but the tradeoff in thickness is probably worth it. Furthermore, the new button placement is a big improvement, one which will likely make those accidental page turns a thing of the past.

Update: There’s video after the break, and we’ve added more shots to the in-depth gallery, including some mega hot head-to-head with the original Kindle.

Update 2: We added another longer video after the break with a quick jaunt through the unit’s interface and a bit of text-to-speech action.

Continue reading Kindle 2 first hands-on! (updated with video and impressions)

Filed under: Handhelds

Kindle 2 first hands-on! (updated with video and impressions) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Feb 2009 16:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Now that we’ve seen Amazon’s Kindle 2, unveiled by Jeff Bezos today in New York, I can’t help but conclude that the more powerful machine provides only a slim additional reader benefit. Here’s why:

There are improvements that make the Kindle 2 marginally better for readers, like faster page turning, smaller better page-turn buttons, longer battery life and the ability to charge via USB. None of the rest of the tweaks affect the actual business of reading directly or indirectly, and even these upgrades probably won’t turn Kindle 1 owners an envious shade of green:

• 20% faster page turning: It nice because flipping ahead several E-Ink pages can be annoying—but it’s not what’s needed to make a real difference. You still can’t leaf through a Kindle book like a real book, and that won’t happen until the page refresh is 100 times (maybe 1000 times) as fast.

• Smaller inward-press page-turn buttons: The original’s big right-hand page-turn button was annoying, but you just learned quickly how to pick up the device without touching it. This is definitely an improvement—especially with its MacBook-like click tension—but not a forward leap.

• Longer battery life: It already ran for a week or more with 3G turned off, but now it can go two weeks—my guess is, there’s a point in there where people simply find time to charge their Kindle.

• Charging via USB: The best Kindle 2 benefit has been largely overlooked. Now that you can charge while connected to your computer, or charge using any old mini-USB cable or charger, you aren’t likely to run down the battery unwittingly, or live at the mercy of Amazon’s proprietary power brick.

Let’s look at the other improvements, and see why they don’t matter at all for actual reading:

• Better screen detail: This might be nice for looking at pretty pictures, but words are perfectly readable on the first-gen Kindle. Update: Our buddy Josh Quittner at Time mentioned that the real travesty is that E-Ink hasn’t gotten more white, for higher-contrast reading. And where’s the font support, so that your favorite magazines and newspapers actually look like they’re supposed to?

• Thinner body: The first Kindle was already thinner than any book I take to bed, even the original mass-media paperback of Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49. It was also very light, so not a problem.

• Seven times more memory: Even that kid in Magnolia could’ve packed all his books into the first Kindle’s 256MB of storage. This memory upgrade—2GB, or 1,500 books—only helps people who are using Kindle for multimedia stuff, and who does that? The memory bump is probably based on market availability: The 2GB chip was probably cheapest one offered by the manufacturer. Update: Commenter Noobs-R-Us reminded me that the thing is also missing the freakin’ SD reader, so the 2GB is all you get, take it or leave it.

• Text-to-speech reading: I admit that, if the interface navigation can also be read aloud, this will be a great boon for blind people, but until voice synthesizers start to sound like Peter O’Toole, consumers won’t take this over Audible when they’re heading out on a road trip.

Here’s what either didn’t get fixed, or in fact got worse:

• File conversion: There’s still no native PDF support, in fact PDF, HTML, DOC, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP are all available only through a conversion process, one that costs money. Update: Commenter Gilbert points out there is a cumbersome but totally free way to send docs to Amazon and get them converted and emailed back—it seems the 10-cent charge is for transmitting to your Kindle directly.

• Screen size is the same: I’d rather have a bigger screen (like the insanely expensive iRex 1000S) than a “better” screen.

• Lack of rubber backing: Since the back is now slick aluminum and plastic, there’s a greater chance of the thing slipping off the sink and into the toilet. What, you don’t read in the bathroom?

• No more sparkle cursor: Instead of a weird but fast independent cursor to the right of the display, you now highlight stuff directly on the screen, which is slower.

The Beez says that the “Kindle vision” is “Every book ever printed in any language, available in under 60 seconds.” That sounds fun but buying books will never be the plot of some Nicholas Cage movie. The selection was already good and getting better all the time, and the first Kindle had the same fast book delivery. This should not be the vision. The vision should be making Kindle even more book-like.

Before they address the needs of some hypothetical super weakling who has the aesthetic sense of Jon Ive, the cerebral voracity of Rain Man and the vision of Mr. Magoo, Amazon must address the needs of very real readers who read only a few books and magazines at a time, who like to download classic non-copyrighted lit and work-related documents for free, and who like to leaf through pages randomly. This last thing is important, though it may be insurmountable: Airport-friendly page turners don’t really require non-linear random-access reading, but everything smart from Harry Potter to Infinite Jest does, and that’s one concern that the Kindle, or any ebook reader, still does not address well. [Kindle 2 on Gizmodo]

Just as expected, Amazon announced the second-generation Kindle ebook reader with the exclusive Stephen King novel UR today — the page actually went live during the press event. The new version will still cost $359, but it’s much thinner than the angular original — in fact, it’s thinner than an iPhone at just .36 inches. Arguably the biggest new feature is Read to Me, which can read any content on the device back to you in a decent-sounding computerized voice, but there’s also seven times more storage, a sharper 16-level e-ink display that turns pages 20 percent faster, 25 percent longer battery life, and a new five-way joystick that improves navigation. Amazon’s Whispernet service is also getting a feature bump, adding in Whispersync bookmarking — if you start reading a book on one Kindle, you can pick up again on any other Kindle automatically. Sadly, it’s still only available in white — the pink Kindle here is just a one-off made to promote UR. Video after the break.

A few more informations:

• Amazon is still working on international release, but has nothing to announce at this time, and wouldn’t even confirm a launch this year.
• Battery is non-removable.
• There will be no Kindle 2-exclusive content, and some of the software improvements will be pushed to the original Kindle — Whispersync is a shoe-in, text-to-speech is a no.

We spent some time playing with the Kindle 2 hands-on — check it out right here!

Continue reading Amazon Kindle 2 announced: $359 on February 24

Filed under: Handhelds

Amazon Kindle 2 announced: $359 on February 24 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

New York – A little more than a year after the Kindle made its debut, Amazon announced a new, updated version of its popular e-book reader Monday with a big endorsement from Stephen King.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos demonstrated the features of the new device, called Kindle 2, at a crowded press event at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York. He stressed the need for the Kindle to "disappear" so the reader can focus on the text. Bezos himself then disappeared, welcoming novelist Stephen King to the stage to give his take and announce a Kindle-only novella he wrote specifically for Amazon.

As predicted in leaked photos, the new Kindle 2 has a much slimmer profile than the original (.36” thick compared to the first version’s 0.7" thick), is slightly lighter (10.2 ounces versus the original 10.3 ounces), has curved edges, and includes a sleeker, unified keyboard with a 5-way joystick instead of the original device’s scroll wheel. And the navigation buttons have been pushed down for tighter control (and to avoid the accidental page-turning that many users complained about). Kindle 2 has a 25 percent longer battery life, Bezos claimed, and contains 2GB of memory that can hold more than 1,500 books.

There is also a new iPod-like metal back plate and a set of stereo speakers along the bottom, which enable a new feature: The Kindle 2 can convert any text to audio, so it can "read" books to you in a somewhat robotic, artificial-sounding voice. (King jokingly called this a "GPS voice").

(See how the Kindle 2 and the Sony Reader stack up, feature-wise.)

Another major update is a new Whispersync service which makes it easier for original Kindle owners to transfer e-books they’ve already purchased to the new device. Whispersync will eventually work on a number of mobile devices as well, enabling Kindle owners to read their books on other devices.

The Kindle’s screen has been improved, too: The E-Ink technology, already easier on the eyes than a computer screen or standard LCD screen, has been updated to 16 shades of gray, up from the current model’s 4 levels of gray. It also turns pages 20 percent faster on average than the previous model, Bezos said.

Unfortunately the design is all that has changed, as Amazon is standing by the $359 price tag.  It’s available for pre-sale now, and original Kindle owners jump to the front of the queue if they order by midnight Tuesday. Kindle 2 will start shipping February 24, 2009, Bezos indicated.

There is also still no Wi-Fi access, but, as with the first version, with its 3G cellular radio (supplied by Sprint) Kindle owners can purchase any of Amazon’s 230,000 titles anywhere where there is a signal from Sprint’s data network.

And the Kindle’s limitations on file formats remain unchanged. It still cannot easily display standard PDF (Acrobat) files, nor can it utilize e-book formats other than Amazon’s.

King read a passage at the press event from the novella entitled "Ur," which he wrote this January, that includes direct references and discussion about the Kindle and the Amazon bookstore. But he says the Kindle in his story does more than Kindle 2, like accessing information from other worlds.

While he obviously loves the Kindle, King says print books will always be around. Instead, he sees e-books and print books as complementary.

“They’re like peanut butter and chocolate, when you put them together you’ve got a whole new taste treat,” he said.

It has been quite a year for the Kindle, with ever growing popularity due in no small part to an Oprah endorsement in November that included special guest Bezos.  Oprah called the device her "new favorite thing in the world."

Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney also called it the "ipod of the book world" last fall, predicting sales for the year of around 240,000.

And just this month, however, he upped the number again to about half a million, using estimates based on Sprint service, and that it will become a $1.2 billion business by 2010.

"We’ve been selling e-books for years and guess what, it didn’t work… until 14 months ago," said Bezos on Monday.

He says more than 10 percent of e-book units sold now are Kindle books.

Amazon itself has yet nor is it likely to release any specific numbers, but e-book’s are certainly growing in popularity and hype, and the device was sold out on Amazon throughout the holiday season.

Many other companies are planning on releasing e-book readers this year including Plastic Logic with its paper thin device that was unveiled at last year’s DEMO, and Foxit Software whose reader will be much cheaper than its competitors at around $250.

And Sony beat Kindle to an update a few months ago, with a touch screen reader that has features, like note taking, which seem to be targeting the college crowd. And while Sony promises to add wireless access in the next update, Kindle’s got it beat on one major front with its free Whispersync access to purchase books on-the-go. 

Amazon also said this week that it is planning on releasing Kindle titles on mobile devices besides the Kindle very soon, and it is likely to inolve the new Whispersync feature.

"We are excited to make Kindle books available on a range of mobile phones," said Drew Herdener, a spokesman for Amazon. "We are working on that now."

Others are turning to mobile devices like the iPhone as an e-reader, through various applications like Classics, Stanza, and ScrollMotion’s Iceberg apps.  Google gave this medium a big boost last week when it optimized about 1.5 million titles in its public domain Book Search library for iPhones and T-Mobile’s Android powered G1.

Photos: Amazon