The Amazon Kindle 2: A Good Tool for Business?
Yesterday, Amazon took the wraps off the Kindle 2 e-book reader, which offers a slimmer design, a better screen, and longer battery life.
The original Kindle was a runaway hit with consumers. Could the Kindle 2 find its way into the briefcases of business users? PC World's Zack Stern thinks so; he cites 6 reasons you'll want a kindle 2 for business. Here's the most obvious:
It takes less space than books. The new Kindle is a miniscule 0.36-inches thick, nearly half the depth of the original model. It's also shed nearly two pounds, weighing in at 10.2 ounces. While it's still another device to tote along in your laptop bag, the Kindle 2 is easily smaller than the pile of books it displaces.
Stern also points to the Kindle 2's support for PDFs as well as Word and text files; its new Web browser; and its ability to "read to you while you're driving" (via its built-in text-to-speech capabilities).
What do you think? Is all this compelling enough for you to drop $359 on a Kindle 2? Or do you shudder at the idea of carrying yet another gizmo? Personally, I find that my iPhone out-Kindles the Kindle, so I wouldn't jump unless the latter had a much lower price -- say, $99. But that's just me. I'm cheap.