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Amazon Kindle 2: A full review

While it's still short of perfection--and has a too-high price tag--the Amazon Kindle 2 offers a range of improvements that makes it the best overall e-book reader we've seen to date.

David Carnoy Executive Editor / Reviews
Executive Editor David Carnoy has been a leading member of CNET's Reviews team since 2000. He covers the gamut of gadgets and is a notable reviewer of mobile accessories and portable audio products, including headphones and speakers. He's also an e-reader and e-publishing expert as well as the author of the novels Knife Music, The Big Exit and Lucidity. All the titles are available as Kindle, iBooks, Nook e-books and audiobooks.
Expertise Mobile accessories and portable audio, including headphones, earbuds and speakers Credentials
  • Maggie Award for Best Regularly Featured Web Column/Consumer
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David Carnoy

Amazon

There's been a lot of anticipation about what Amazon would do for an encore to its much-hyped e-book reader, the Kindle, and now that it's finally here we can say that the Kindle 2 is about what we expected it to be. Talk of it being a huge leap forward or going from generation one to generation five in one fell swoop was really, well, just talk.

In reality, the Kindle 2 is a nice upgrade over the original Kindle; yes, it leaves off a couple of key items--most importantly removable memory and a protective carrying case--but it makes up for it with a slicker design, improved performance, increased internal memory, built-in speakers, and a new feature, Text-to-Speech audio reading.

That's all you need to know in a nutshell. But I did write about 2,500 more words on the device if you want the full skinny on Amazon's Kindle 2.

Read the review.