Kindle 2

Wednesday, 9:57 am

By Kate

Feb

11

2009

It was halfway through the day on Monday before I learned that Amazon had announced their second generation Kindle in the AM. I missed all the fun of watching the webcasts live. Stephen King was even there with Jeff Bezos, holding a pepto-bismol pink Kindle. I’d have paid to see that. I believe the pink was to celebrate/promote his new story about a Kindle, which will be released on February 24th when the Kindle 2 begins shipping. Anyway....

When I first looked at the photos/videos of the new Kindle, I thought “how sleek” and I really wanted it. Naturally. And to make matters worse, Amazon said that 1st generation Kindle owners had until Tuesday night at midnight to place an order to be assured of getting one immediately—as opposed to waiting for weeks or, possibly, months. We know how that goes. My one-click finger was awfully itchy.

I’m glad to say that rationality prevailed and I’ve decided that I’ll wait until the 3rd or 4th or 5th generation. Mine works just fine and I’m happy with it. There are improvements yet to be made, but I can’t imagine being without it now. I love my Kindle.

The more I’ve looked at the Kindle 2, though, the more I’m unsure if I actually like it better. Compare the two photos below. First photo is the 1st generation Kindle. Second photo is the new one. I appreciate that the new Kindle is all sleek and slim and cool looking, but the 1st generation one grew on me. It has more personality. The new one, however, does address the side button issues. It took a while to learn how to hold mine without inadvertently pressing one of page turning bars. Even now, I still hit one accidentally on occasion. It’s not a big issue for me, though. The new design seems to eliminate that problem.

I might have been a great deal more tempted if Amazon had attended to one of the largest and most widely expressed wishes for the next generation Kindle. Folders. For those of us who have had our Kindles for several months, it became abundantly clear, after acquiring more than 100 books, that its organizational features fell far short. There is no way to divide books into categories. One can either choose to list them all by author, title, or in order of date acquired/most recently read. That’s it. Fortunately, the Kindle 1 has a slot for a card onto which we can place our books in some kind of order that suits us. Different cards for different categories and such. Also a good way to back-up copies of books and files downloaded from places other than Amazon, without needing to plug into a computer for back-up.

The new Kindle does not have a card slot. But it does have 1.4 Gigs of storage. They say it’ll hold in excess of 1500 books. I’m trying to imagine storing that many books on a Kindle with no folders. That would be somewhere in the vicinity of 125 pages of menu to wade through to find what you’re looking for...ordered by date, author or book title. I almost always sort my books by most recent first. That way the books I’m reading appear at the top of the menu’s first page. Otherwise, they’re scattered all over the place and it gets to be a nuisance hunting for them. Can’t sort them by genre or whatever else floats my little boat. You can search for what you’re looking for, but after a certain number books, you kind of forget what books you have unless you can organize them in some meaningful way.

And I know that the Kindle does have some folder capability. I subscribe to Newsweek and it is listed on my menu as a folder and inside the folder are all the issues I’ve received. Amazon just doesn’t allow us to create our own folders.

Maybe they will through a software update in the near future. Or not. I’ll wait until Amazon provides that option before I’ll even think about upgrading to a new model.

Now, if they ever decide to come out with colors...well, that’s a whole other irresistable universe. But for now, I’m a little disappointed in what the new Kindle offers or doesn’t offer. They also make you pay $30 extra to get a cover for it, while one was provided with the 1st generation Kindle. The new Kindle really is pretty and sleek, but Amazon left off a couple of important features. It’s odd that they removed the card slot and provided nothing else for organizing large numbers of books. I don’t get it.

The good news is that there are suddenly a raft of 1st generation Kindles up for re-sale for anyone not wanting to pay top dollar. Looks as if a number of Kindle 1 owners are trading up.