Kindle v2 announced

Amazon has finally announced the much awaited update to their Kindle eReader product.  The new one is thinner, lighter and has improved battery life, download speeds, button layout and an upgrade to a 16-shade display from the current 4 shades.

The price remains the same ($359) and it will continue to operate on Sprint’s data network, so no love for the folks outside the USA.  They expect to start shipping the devices on February 24, and I would expect that there will be reasonably long waitlists, just like when the original version was released.

I’m actually somewhat concerned that it might be too thin to feel natural in your hand while reading.  That’s one thing I really like about the original.  I guess I’ll have to wait a couple weeks to find out.

The file formats supported remain pretty much the same, too, which is not so impressive.  I had hoped that would get a bit better.

They’re going to sell a ton of these, including one to me, but it isn’t clear that they are revolutionary or even really a significant upgrade over the original model.  It will basically be all about the screen.  Hopefully I’ll know more very soon after February 24th.