Kindle 2 Finally Arrives with Longer Battery Life and More Storage

The latest of many rumors regarding Amazon's next-generation Kindle eBook reader predicted the new device would make an official debut today, and New York Times blogger Brad Stone can now pat himself on the back for getting the release day right. Amazon has finally introduced the long anticipated Kindle 2, the followup to the immensely popular Kindle.

"Kindle 2 is everything customers tell us they love about the original Kindle, only thinner, faster, crisper, with longer battery life, and capable of holding hundreds more books. If you want, Kindle 2 will even read to you—something new we added that a book could never do,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO.

The redesigned Kindle 2 measures just over a third of an inch (0.36 inches), weighs slightly over 10 ounces, and comes with a 6-inch, 600x800 electronic paper display providing 16 shades of gray, which is four times as many as the original Kindle. Amazon says the Kindle 2 turns pages on average up to 20 percent faster than the original, and will hold more than 1,500 books with its 2GB of memory, versus 200 books in the first Kindle.

Other notable improvements include 25 percent longer battery life, an instant dictionary lookup, a new experimental read-to-me feature, and a new 5-way controller "for more precise note-taking and highlighting both up and down and side to side in lines of text." Amazon says the new controller also makes it easier to jump between articles and sections of newspapers.

The Kindle is available for pre-order for $359 at http://amazon.com/kindle2 and will start shipping on February 24.

Image Credit: Amazon