Why You Don't Need A Kindle Upgrade

Amazon's new e-reader may be pretty, but it doesn't merit dropping another $359.

I'll admit it. I liked the Kindle more before it was an oversized iPod.

On Tuesday, Amazon customers began receiving the first shipments of the next generation of its digital reading device, the Kindle 2. Amazon's new e-reader uses the same innovative e-Ink screen and wireless connection that made the first Kindle a modest hit in the world of digital bibliophiles.

But it also promised a higher-contrast screen, faster page turning, more battery life and storage and, most importantly, a sleek new design that erases the clunky-looking asymmetry of Amazon's first crack at the gadget. In adding these features, however, the Kindle 2 mimics the rounded corners and white simplicity of an Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) device.

Still, the new Kindle is an impressively sleek piece of gadgetry. At just 0.36 inches thick, it's 25% thinner than the iPhone and a sheet of brushed aluminum replaces the last Kindle's rubber back panel. A "joystick"-like controller takes the place of the primitive two-way scroll wheel that powered the earlier Kindle's menus.

But after a few hours with Amazon's pretty new device, I found something surprising: For all its slender good looks, the new Kindle doesn't feel as natural for reading as its strangely shaped predecessor.

The first Kindle, now available only on eBay or other outlets where antique hardware languishes, is a sloping wedge that's wider on its left side, which allows readers to wrap their hands around the e-reader like a paperback with its cover folded back around the spine. Though bloggers, reviewers and, yes, even Forbes mocked the 1980s blockiness of the device when it was released in November 2007, Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos claimed that the device was designed to "disappear." Once a reader became immersed in a book, the Kindle's look didn't matter so much as its ability to create a seamless reading experience. (See: "Let's Hope Kindle Is Only Chapter One")

With his second-generation device, Bezos seems to have forgotten the meaning of that mantra. The newer, thinner Kindle seems more interested in wowing customers with its iPod-like exterior than in comfortably filling the space between an index finger and a thumb. Its aluminum back panel is cold and slippery compared with the rubber grip on the back of the older version.

 

And while the new page-turning buttons--far smaller than those on the last model--are harder to press accidentally, they can require a split second longer to find with a thumb, momentarily interrupting the reading experience.