The second-generation Kindle is thinner than the original Kindle — it measures a svelte 91mm at its thickest point — and weighs 289g. That’s basically the same as the 2009 lineup of Sony Reader models.
The keyboard is an improvement over the first-generation Kindle’s, but Barnes & Noble’s rival Nook offers a colour touch screen for navigation instead.
One thing that hasn’t changed much from the original Kindle is the height and width of the device. Some people have complained that the original Kindle should have been shorter and forgone the keyboard, like the Sony Reader did. Whether you’re a fan of the keyboard or not, it’s worth noting that the second-generation Kindle is actually slightly longer than the original, measuring 20.3cm from top to bottom.
The keyboard
Part of the reason for the elongation is that Amazon has devoted a bit more space to the keyboard, with some additional room between the keys and a more simplified, streamlined look (the keys are circular and the space bar is longer and more intuitively placed). This was a good move, as the keyboard is now easier to use.
As on a BlackBerry and other shrunken QWERTY keyboards, you enter text using your thumbs. The Kindle’s keyboard comes in handy when entering notes and annotations while reading (they’re saved), keying in text for searches in the Kindle Store, and typing in URLs when surfing the web. We also appreciated that the home button is now much more prominently displayed on the side of the device, right in the middle above the ‘Next page’ button. Before, it was tiny and buried at the bottom of the keyboard.
The screen
In case you haven’t heard already, the Kindle’s screen is technically considered an electrophoretic display, which Wikipedia describes as ‘an information display that forms visible images by rearranging charged pigment particles using an applied electric field’. Like some other electronic paper products, the Kindle uses E-Ink technology, which serves to make the letters and words on the screen look more print-like in their appearance. A lot of people, when they first see the screen, are genuinely impressed.
As with most of these types of digital readers, there’s no backlight (Amazon says it causes eyestrain), so you need some sort of light source to read in the dark. The screen itself is a 6in. (diagonal) electronic-paper display that, according to the specs, sports a 600-by-800-pixel resolution at 167 pixels per inch. This new Kindle offers 16 shades of grey instead of 4, which really doesn’t do anything for making standard text look better, but it does add more detail to images. Visually challenged readers will be happy to note that the Kindle’s font size can be adjusted to six different levels.
