Sunday, October 5, 2008

Kindle 2.0 Rumors: The Good, The Bad and The (Still) Ugly

The Kindle 2.0 rumors are picking up steam again. And now there are photos of an actual device floating around. As the picture to the left shows, version 2.0 will apparently be about the same size as 1.0. The photos show they're also changing the chicklet keyboard as well as the scroll wheel (with a joystick).

The overall design still has a very 1980's feel though, so the advantage goes to Sony on the eye candy factor.

Here's what I don't understand: This story says the SD card slot goes away in Kindle 2.0. Why?! I don't care that they're increasing the memory...I put all my music on SD cards and like to swap in and out as the mood suits me. Now I'll always have to load the music on the device? Not a good idea.

If you look at this picture you'll see the back side will have a brushed metal finish. The back panel no longer slides off, meaning the battery probably can't be easily replaced. So the back side will look sleek while the front, well...I guess we're buying Kindles to read with, not show off. I'm not sure a brushed metal backside is worth the loss of the SD slot and replaceable battery. More importantly, will I still be able to get to the paperclip-powered reset button if the back won't come off?

2 comments:

Kristen said...

The only change that interests me is the new joystick.

I'll be very surprised if they really get rid of the SD slot. I was actually expecting them to make it more accessible.

Anyway, I'm quite happy with Kindle version 1.0. Maybe 3.0 will entice me to upgrade.

Anonymous said...

I have seen this story all over the web and I am yet to see some speculate that rather than the Kindle 2.0 this may actually be an early prototype of the Kindle 1.0. From the looks of it the device is bigger, uglier, and the keyboard looks really bad.

This along with rumors of no SD, no user replaceable battery, etc, I am guessing this was a pre-Kindle prototype.