People no longer have to wonder about Amazon’s new Kindle 2 e-book reader, as its pictures and pricing details have been leaked over the Internet through a forum. If the photos are indeed accurate, the design of the new device introduces a thinner footprint, stereo speakers and a metal back plate, and the overall apearance resembles to Apple’s first iPod.

The device presents rounded corners, a black and white screen which is the same size as the original Kindle, a unified QWERTY keyboard right under the display screen, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, a sliding sleep button, smaller navigation buttons than the original model on its right and left, and instead of the classic scroll wheel there is now a joystick. It will come with 2 Giga Bytes of on-board memory, but the photos do not show any SD card slot - which could represent a problem for some users. The Kindle will use the same EV-DO wireless technology for downloads.

According to the information on the forum, the Kindle 2 will be available starting with February 24 at a price of $359.

At this point, all the data is considered purely speculative and considering that the company did not comment on the matter, could mean that the report might have missed certain details. Amazon is expected to officialy present its new device on Monday, during its announced press conference at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York. Even though the company did not provide a clear topic for tomorrow’s show, which will be hosted by Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos, the general belief is that it will finally make the announcement about Kindle 2’s release.

Even though until now the market did not include any significant competition for Amazon, there are a few projects that could soon turn the stakes around. Sony Corp. has also entered the market with its $299 electronic reader, which so far, did not manage to reach Kindle’s success. Google is also stepping up its game. The company announced earlier this week that more than 1.5 million books from its Google Book Search service are now available on mobile devices. This is probably one of the reasons why Amazon announced a few days ago that it is currently developing a system to make Kindle’s content available on a series of mobile devices.

Amazon.com started out back in 1995 as an online bookstore, and over the years managed to enter many other markets, which include music and clothing.

The company announced that its Kindle offer provides about 230,000 available titles and that the average user purchases approximately 1.6 electronic books for every traditional book bought. At the time of its launch, the device was received with great enthusiasm, being completely sold out just six hours after its release. A similar situation was encountered last year, as the company had to announce a timeout on all sales until the stocks get refilled.

Many of the questions raised on the matter will surely be answered during tomorrow’s event.