Our friends at Brighthand have reviewed the new Amazon Kindle 2 and their opinion is that it is the best eBook reader out there in the market:

The Amazon Kindle 2 is an impressive piece of technology, and Amazon should be proud. Much like Apple’s success with the iPod, Amazon is crafting a successful brand by not only offering good hardware, but by supporting it with a software backbone.

It has succeeded where others have failed by sheer effort; even though Sony has been at the effort a longer time, their store doesn’t offer as much content, and it’s typically more expensive. Moreover, no other e-reader can offer such expansive wireless connectivity, at least at this point in time.

Despite the overall positive tone of this review, the Kindle 2 isn’t perfect. I’m not a huge fan of the 5-way joystick, as it’s slippery and at times difficult to use, and there are still some user interface bugs that need ironed out. Moreover, when you flip the power switch to turn wake it from sleep mode, it can take up to thirty seconds before it’s fully responsive; until then it can take more than a second for pages to refresh.

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Seems like the industry is not really impressed by the recent announcement of Amazon’s Kindle 2. Despite the enhancements, many pundits expected a lot more from the online giant – most importantly a price drop; its sale price will remain the same as the previous version, US$359.

I mean take a look at the improvements:

The battery life’s been improved by about 25 percent. The Kindle 2 is much skinnier than its predecessor, slimming down to 0.36 inches in thickness from 0.7, but it’s only a tenth of an ounce lighter. The storage capacity has jumped from 256MB to 2GB, or about 200 to 1,500 books, and the electronic ink display has improved from a 4-shade to 16-shade grayscale.

Given that most units were snapped up quite quickly last year, I believe Amazon is employing good business practice with their pricing strategy, especially in these tough times.

Would you pay the extra for augmentations?

For those who don’t know what a Kindle is, read this Amazon Kindle product description page.

Via CNET