When Kindle 2 saw daylight for the first time Monday, it became clear Amazon still lacks a bit of imagination in creating a second-generation gadget, since it isn’t much of an upgrade compared to the first Kindle to ever come out on the market.

 

That doesn’t mean of course there’s nothing new about Kindle 2, it just means that if you had plans to change your old Kindle for a new one, you might want to reconsider that. However, if you want 20 percent improved speed in page turns, a thinner design, more memory and improved battery life, Kindle 2 is the way to go.

 

Let’s take it one step at a time: the first thing that strikes users in Kindle 2 is the slicker design compared to the first generation one, and as Amazon presented it, Kindle 2 is pencil thin and lighter than a typical paperback. With that being said, we can move to the buttons, which have also been redesigned, and to the new 5-way joystick controller, which now makes it easier to jump between whatever it is that you’re reading.

 

While Amazon may have polished Kindle 2 in some essential parts, it is still hard to compare it to the slick design of Sony’s PSR-700, which looks like the number one competitor at this point. Sure, it’s shouldn’t be all about looks, but it should be one of the starting points in marketing a device, in addition to functionality of course.

 

Moving from the design to the 6-inch screen, it is worth noting that the display is much improved compared to the first Kindle, in the sense that it offers 4 times the shades of gray in the original Kindle. This results in a clearer display, and an experience which shouldn’t give users the feeling that they’re reading from an electronic device, but from paper.

 

Amazon also made an upgrade in terms of battery life, which now lasts 25 percent longer, and memory, which is now 2 GB, from just 256 MB in the original Kindle. This means the e-book reader can hold up to 1,500 books, which can be downloaded from the 230,000 titles made available by Amazon through its Kindle Store.

 

Kindle 2 keeps the wireless functionality of the first-generation reader, which allows users to download any book from the Kindle Store in less than 60 seconds. What we don’t find in the original Kindle, but we find in Kindle 2, is the Read-To-Me experimental feature, in both female and male voice versions.

 

There’s just one more thing Kindle 2 still hangs on to, and that is the steep price. The gadget, which will be available starting January 24, has been priced at $359, which some analysts believe to still be too high. We could probably expect it to get a little cut sometime in the future, just like its predecessor, but isn’t likely to happen too soon.