Kindle: Round 2

You may have heard that Amazon has released its second generation electronic book reader, the Kindle 2.

Even in tough economic times, some of us have to have the latest gadget. Of course, for those who waited to try the original Kindle, there are now lots of slightly used Kindles on the market as their owners look to upgrade.

USA Today itemizes some of the (fairly minor) alterations to the older version of the device. The Kindle 2 is predictably slimmer with a slightly improved interface, and more shades of gray to emulate actual paper even more accurately.

PCMag, however, would like everyone to realize that there are other e-readers on the market. You might even own one already and not realize it.

Personally, file format is a big issue for me. I want to be sure that I get an e-book reader that can handle pretty much every format thrown at it. And I want to be able to transfer data between a reader and my computer’s hard drive. Even if the new Kindle can handle around 1500 books, Amazon has done away with the port that allowed an external memory card to store some of the data and free up space on the device itself. I’m still not convinced.

Are you using an e-book reader now or leaning toward the purchase of a particular model? Perhaps you’re one of the late adopters searching for a gently used Kindle newly released onto the market as the original owner looks to the next generation device?