My New Kindle My Amazon Kindle 2 came today via UPS; a day earlier than promised. The Kindle 2 has some design changes - the major one, as far as I am concerned is the placement of the buttons along the sides. The original version had a design flaw which placed the "Next Page" and "Prev Page" buttons exactly where I placed my thumbs when I was holding the device. That meant I was constantly paging ahead and paging backward which, because it took about 1.5 seconds for the page to refresh, was muy distracting. So distracting that I never bought it. The Kindle comes with a Quick Start Guide and the charger. That's it. Here's complaint number one: The Kindle costs $359. There is no sleeve to cover the device. However, Amazon did send me an email offering to sell me Cole-Hann leather sleeves ranging from $99 upwards. For $359, you should get something to protect the screen. I ended up buying a neoprene sleeve for another 25 bucks. If I lose the Kindle I can use it for SCUBA diving. The charger comes apart at the plug end, so you can charge the device (or transfer files) from your computer - Mac or PC. Complaints numbers 2 and 2a are these. The USB part of the connector that plugs into the Kindle is a mini-port instead of a standard port. That means yet another cord to shlep around in my backpack. Complaint 2a is that the port is at the base of the kindle instead of at the top or one of the sides. At the top or sides there is little likelihood of me breaking it off. Against my fat belly, it is a foregone conclusion that I will snap it off within a matter of months. That's what I didn't like. Here's what I do like: Everything else. The screen is easy to read and, when I go around to reading the directions, the device becomes more and more intuitive. I got a personal letter from Jeff Bezos welcoming me to the Amazon-Kindle family, which I thought was nice of him. It also comes with the User's Guide pre-loaded, the New Oxford American Dictionary and any books which you've bought in advance. I hadn't bought any so this is what the screen looked like: The big deal about the Kindle is the ability to download books from Amazon. On the MENU screen the first item is "Turn Wireless Off" which is useful if you are on an airplane and want to save battery power. The second item is "Shop in Kindle Store." If you press the ENTER button you are automagically connected via, I think, Verizon's 3G network and you can choose between 240,000 books, newspapers, magazines, and assorted other things. I clicked on the Kindle Top Sellers and came across the new Jack Higgins book. I clicked on the "BUY" button and (according to the stopwatch on my Blackberry Bold) 41 seconds later the entire book had downloaded and was ready to read. Because it's Amazon, I was also presented with books which are "Recommended for You" which were four in the Alexander Kent series of British Naval adventures of which I have already read all. Reading on the Kindle comes in several forms. You can, as I do, read a book like you would … read a book. I am not one of those people who reads with a pen and underlines "special passages." Thus, the ability to do that electronically and store those "special passages" is not terribly important to me. But reading the book as you would a book is very cool. The fact that I move my lips when I read should not dissuade you from this. The technology in the Kindle is this: The screen paints the words as if they were words on a page. The screen is not backlighted so no matter how bright the light is, it is very easy to read. The contrast is not, to my knowledge, adjustable, but it doesn't need to be. The other choice is to have the book read itself to you through an "Experimental" text-to-speech system. Do not confuse this system with a professionally produced and read audio book. It has a certain "c.o.m.p.u.t.e.r. g.e.n.e.r.a.t.e.d" quality to it but I tried it out on the way into the District and after a while, I got used to it and it was a pretty good way to ignore the idiot who was driving in the left lane of the George Washington Parkway going FORTY ONE MILES AN HOUR. Which happens to be the speed limit, but still. You can also e-mail yourself documents which get translated into Kindle-speak and then show up on your device. This costs 10 cents a doc, but if you need to read the executive summary of the President's Housing Rescue Plan in preparation for the Chicago Tea Party hosted by Rick Santelli, it's not a bad deal. The Kindle also has a fairly basic web browser, but I'm not certain when I'd use that. If I have 3G coverage I'd use my Blackberry which is in color. Nevertheless, I gave the Kindle THE TEST: That's it. First day of my Kindle 2. I like it.