On Friday, we received an Amazon Kindle 2 and have been tinkering with it all weekend. While we're not ready to do a full-on, no-holds-barred, detailed Obsessable review as of yet, the device is interesting enough to warrant a quick first impressions look at its performance and a bunch of unboxing pictures to boot. We also want to take this opportunity to solicit any questions you may have about the device that you would like us to address in our later full review. Should you have any, please leave them in the comments below or send them via Twitter to either @obsessable or @cksample. 

Unpacking the Kindle 2

The Kindle 2 arrives in a thin little cardboard box, glued neatly shut with no annoying tape to tear through, and with a cardboard and plastic strip rip-cord on the right side for easily opening the box. After removing this rip-cord, the box opens, much like a book cover, to reveal a black interior with prettily designed text floating about, the words Amazon Kindle nicely printed in the midst of the floating letters, and another black box inside.

Someone spent some time making the packaging nice.

Once the black box is removed, you discover that the top of it isn't cardboard but rather a thin paper, and again, along the right side of the box is another perforated tab to pull to open the box that with a nice touch reads "Once upon a time..." in an inviting font.

Once the paper cover is removed, you find a black egg-crate type of cardboard holding the device.

Once it is open and you hold up the Kindle, you're met with the rather easy set-up instructions "Step 1: Plug in your Kindle. Step 2: Slide and release the power switch above. Your screen will refresh in a few moments." with a helpful set of illustrations and an arrow pointing to the location of the power switch. When I first removed the Kindle 2 from the box, I thought the image was printed on the clear plastic film that was covering the front of the device, but as I later discovered, this was actually being displayed via the Kindle's e-ink screen and it disappeared once I actually followed the steps it outlined.

After removing the Kindle 2, there is a white plastic sectional.

Removing the sectional reveals the USB cable and power plug wrapped in black paper in a section at the bottom, immediately below a black pamphlet with more of the same floating black letters design circling the lower-cased Amazon Kindle logo that had appeared on the front of the unopened box.

The pamphlet has the basics of getting started with the Kindle 2.

The power-cable for the device consists of a white USB-micro to USB cable that plugs directly into a power plug with a USB port. This was really a good design choice, as it makes the one cable that you need to carry with the Kindle for charging extremely portable and should something happen to the cable part of it it can easily be replaced by any standard USB-micro to USB cable. As a bonus, I discovered that the little plug also works fine with my iPhone's USB cable for charging that device, and I imagine it could be used to charge any device that is chargeable via USB, so long as the device can handle the 4.9V / 0.85A charge that the plug pushes out.

Plugging it in

Bottom view of the exceptionally thin Kindle 2 with charging LED light and USB micro cable.

When you plug in the Kindle a small LED next to the USB port lights up yellow-orange as it is charging and turns green when the device is fully charged. It takes approximately three hours for the Kindle 2 to fully charge, but you can begin using it immediately, as it charges. Once you turn the Kindle 2 on, after a brief startup period complete with progress bar, the Kindle 2 User's Guide opens up, welcoming you to the Kindle. There is a brief introductory section that walks you through all the basics of the device that you can quickly page through to learn how it all works. 

 

The Kindle 2 User's Guide features a nice diagram outlining all the controls on the device.

The back of the Kindle 2 is mostly brushed-metal with two perforated rectangles at the bottom corners to accommodate the speakers which allow for the playback of MP3 files, Audible books, or to use the Text-to-Speech feature of the device to have whatever text you are reading on the device read aloud to you by either a slightly artificial sounding male or female voice (with the exception of web pages you are viewing with the experimental web-browser, which does not support Text-to-Speech). The top inch-and-a-half or so of the Kindle's backside is covered with a nicely textured and easy-to-grip grey rubber-like plastic that feels slightly softer than the matte white plastic on the front of the device. Some online forums have claimed that this is necessary to allow the internal Sprint 3G Whispernet antenna to connect without being blocked by the metal casing that covers the rest of the back, but I found over the weekend that it was useful for holding the Kindle 2 between my thumb and index finger by either of the top corners while reading with the thin side of the device cradled in the palm of my hand.

First Impressions

After using the Kindle 2 all weekend, I have to say, I'm very impressed and enamored with the device. After reading through the first introductory section of the included on-screen manual, I clicked on the Home button and was immediately surprised to find that all the books, newspapers, and magazine trials that I had subscribed to on Amazon's site in anticipation of the arrival of my Kindle 2 were already synced up and waiting for me on the device. All the books that I'd been reading on my Kindle for iPhone application were easily accessible via an Archive folder on the Home screen. A quick click on the titles downloaded them to the Kindle 2 in a matter of seconds and I suddenly found myself at the last page I'd been reading when I last looked at the book on my iPhone. The power of having an always-available internet connection on the device is really amazing and works seamlessly for syncing titles between devices and shopping the Kindle Store directly from the device. All of the periodicals available in the Amazon Kindle Store come with a 14-day free trial and there's something undeniably cool about having the latest issue of your favorite paper waiting for you ad-free on the device when you wake up in the morning.

Of course, the downside of the wireless connection is that it can eat up the battery on the Kindle, but even with heavy usage, a fully charged battery seems to last for nicely over four hours of active use. Fortunately, simply hitting the Menu button prominently gives you the ability to quickly Turn Wireless Off as your first option, which, besides being useful for when you're flying, quickly has become a habit of mine whenever I'm not actively using it. With the wireless turned off the Kindle will most likely last for days, though I have not thoroughly tested this as of yet.

Some of the experimental features, like the included rudimentary web browser are definitely very cool and useful, but it's much more akin to browsing the web on an older model cellphone than the type of web browsing one has become used to on devices like newer model BlackBerry cellphones, iPhones, and T-Mobile G1s. On the Kindle 2, each column of multi-columned websites load stacked on top of one another in one long page that must be navigated down slowly either with the five direction joystick on the Kindle or via the Next Page buttons. Notice in the picture above how my column from last Friday on Obsessable loads. Mobile sites work fine. There is an advanced mode for the browser via which you can enable Javascript, but this is clearly meant for very light Javascript. Gmail will load, but it's not very useful on the device. Google Reader totally froze the browser and while I could navigate to other parts of the device, like reading books and magazines and browsing the Kindle Store, the web browser remained frozen no matter what I did, until I finally rebooted the Kindle.

Whatever poor design that everyone complained about with the old Kindle appears to be gone in this new model, which is sleek and sexy. It feels solid and firm, is exceptionally light, and very easy to hold while reading. As someone who has owned a first generation Sony Portable Reader, I can say that the Kindle 2 approaches the slick style of Sony's line of e-ink devices and adds on functionality.

This newer generation of e-ink display is also much improved over the slightly greenish graininess of first generation e-ink devices. The page turn is much faster too. The text is extremely legible in a wide variety of lighting circumstances and much more like reading normal paper, although there is a very slight reflection when bright light is directly hitting the device, so that in such lighting situations it must be held at a slight angle. For how nice the Kindle 2 looks in all the pictures accompanying this post and other pictures online, it looks even better in person.

The buttons and controls on the device are all nicely placed, responsive, but designed to prevent accidental hitting of them. As a left-handed person, I absolutely adore there being a next page button on either side of the device. I also like that if you click down on the button slightly before your eyes have reached the last of the text, the Kindle 2 doesn't actually turn the page until you release the button, so you can avoid accidently jumping ahead before you meant to. Also, the ability to highlight passages while reading and type notes to the text, in addition to the ability to clip entire articles from periodicals, to a text file that you can later access via your computer when the Kindle 2 is attached via the USB connection is simply amazing. The built-in dictionary is also great for whenever you run into a word that you're not sure of.

Despite all these cool things about the device, there are some small hiccups as well. When the Text-to-Speech feature is turned on, you cannot jump ahead or backwards in the text when it is paused. You must fully turn it off, then navigate ahead or back, and then restart it, which is a bit annoying. Also, the Kindle 2 has randomly restarted on me about 4 times in as many days, and two of those times were when I was simply reading, not using any of the special experimental features of the device.

Lastly, and possibly the biggest problem with the Kindle 2 is its price. $359, while comparable to other e-ink devices out there, is simply too much for most people to spend on this device. I am very struck by the reality that I would not have bought this device had I not amassed close to $300 worth of Amazon Gift Card dollars by trading in old unused video games (via Amazon's video game exchange) and old unused gadgets (via Gazelle.com). That brought the Kindle 2 down to less than $100 out of my pocket. Considering that this device is largely a gateway device via which Amazon should be able to sell more books, Amazon really needs to consider lowering the price to closer to $100 if it wants to go truly mainstream and own the e-book market. 

These are just my first impressions of the device. I'll put together a much more thorough and detailed review after I've had more time to soak in the device. Don't forget to leave any questions you may have about the Kindle 2 in the comments below or send them via Twitter to either @obsessable or @cksample. If I include your question in the review, I'll link to your comment or your Twitter account.