Gadgets, gadgets – the new Kindle
Today I received an email from Amazon telling me that they are releasing the second generation Kindle later this month, and offering me, as a ‘valued customer’, the opportunity to get into the line early. And of course I can never see a gadget without wanting it, even if I already have the thing; and so I duly placed my order for the Kindle 2. I tell myself that it’s worth it because I have someone willing to take the original Kindle off my hands for a small amount of money.
Since I have never seen or held the Kindle 2, I cannot tell whether this is worth the money. But it is, according to the specifications, much thinner, with better screen definition, much more disk space and longer battery life. As I did find the original Kindle just a tiny bit bulky, this seems good to me. I shall offer a review when I have received it towards the end of this month.
Once again, this is for the US market only. I get round this by having it sent to a US address. Also, I imagine it won’t let me connect wirelessly from Ireland (though it’s now running on G3, so it’s a theoretical possibility); I’ll have to download to my computer and transfer the books from there.
On various Kindle-related discussion lists, a large number of users are expressing anger at the new release, as they feel they should have been told when they bought the original Kindle. That seems to me to be naive; of course there was going to be a new model.
Will I use this gadget? Well, I certainly have been using the first one. Not as a substitute for paper books, but as a replacement mainly when travelling. Which is why the bulk and weight matters. And the battery life.
More on all this when I have it. And this being a recession and we all having to tighten belts and all that, let’s hope there isn’t going to be any other enticing gadget for a while.
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University Blog 
February 11, 2009 at 9:37 pm
I cant wait for my next trip back to the U.S. (and indeed for Mr. Obama to fork over my economic stimulus check, I mean cheque) so I can buy more gadgets. It’s my patriotic duty.
I was really hoping that Apple would launch a MacBook Air that would take 4GB RAM as I need it for work, but alas it hasn’t arrived. I may be stuck having to go into Wal-Mart and buy the new high performance iPhone (I am convinced this will happen in parallel with the iPhone Nano) instead. However, with retail IT down 30% in the US, and Apple stock impacted accordingly (‘though it has risen in the past few weeks), launching high spec gadgets in the next 90 days is unlikely. More like the summer.
I’d prefer if Amazon invested more time in making their e-books readable on other, existing, devices, and there are signs that this could happen: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/02/07/google_books_iphone_friendly_amazon_kindle_books_next.html
I really don’t need yet another device to pass through the X-Ray machines at Dublin Airport.
“Kindle” is such a crap name too. The only thing it would “inspire” or “stir up” (pace Amazon’s packaging writers) in me is a desire to take up knitting on long-haul flights.