The Amazon Kindle 2.0 is on its way (images thanks to Boy Genius Report), and it doesn’t look too different from the original. But the bigger question is about whats on the inside, and the handful of new pictures didn’t come with any specs.

It also appears that the unit still uses only EV-DO to download books and has lost the extra SD slot, but it appears to have at least five times the memory of the wimpy original 256MB model. It is slightly wider and taller than the old Kindle, but is also thinner. Making the Kindle smaller doesn’t make sense since its goal is to maintain the functionality of a book. While many are reading books on the iPhone (as many as 400,000 units have been moved), it’s hard to see a device as small as the iPhone really challenging something like the Kindle.

I have a friend who is a bookseller in Manhattan, and he admits that the Kindle scares him. Amazon offers most New York Times bestsellers for around $10, much lower than you will find in a bookstore. The obvious convenience for travelers or commuters is daunting for booksellers, and if it ever hits it big on college campuses, publishers could be in real trouble.

Of course, can a functionality similar to the Kindle be reproduced in a notebook computer? The biggest problem for a notebook is the backlight. A high end color display is not what the Kindle needs, and never will. Anyone who complains about that probably doesn’t know what they are talking about. The electronic paper display is far more comfortable to read on for long periods of time, so I think a device like the Kindle is necessary for an e-reader.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 4th, 2008 at 2:06 pmand is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.