Check this out… the world’s most famous e-book reader has just released version 2.0. It’s available for pre-order, and judging by the way Kindle 1.0 succeeded, I’m sure Kindle 2.0 will stride to the top as well. Kindle 1.0 was rumored to have sold at least half a million units in 2008. Not bad considering that Oprah Winfrey gave her golden endorsement. Kindle played a major role in bringing people to the good habit of reading. And who wouldn’t try to grab an e-book these days with a great gadget to read it with. At .36 inches (almost as thick as a child’s pencil), the Kindle 2.0 is thinner than the thinnest mobile phone. Weighs 10.2 ounces, and the edges doesn’t taper as sharply as before. Perfect, not too bulky, for men’s briefcases or the lady’s handbag.

The Kindle 2.0 has a much smarter and intuitive interface to keep you doing what you need to do with it… READ (Amazon says it’s the easiest reader there is). Display has been upgraded from 4 shades of gray to 16 shades of gray. Hmmm, kinda reminds me of my monochrome monitors long ago but for the Kindle… this is a good leap nonetheless. Colored Kindle soon? :) Wishful thinking.

Other improvements include 25% longer battery life and 20% faster page turns. And how about the read-to-me feature? I think this is the knock-out-punch. Kindle will read English text on the spot.

The Sony Reader

I was concerned initially that my weaker right eye would be my undoing when using one of these, but the paper-like screen technology really is very good indeed. On top of that, this newer model is slimmer and has been redesigned since the last version – making it look very good indeed.

More compact than many paperbacks, it weighs about 9 ounces (without cover), is 1/3″ thin, and holds up to 160 eBooks. You can easily hold it in one hand, and with its rechargeable battery, you can turn up to 7,500 continuous pages on a single charge.

The Reader Digital Book is a new way to read some of your literature, whether you’re into classics or modern stuff. The 6 inch display uses ‘E Ink’ technology, a fancy way of saying that Sony has replicated paper and ink in their display, or as near as you can get. I’d say that I’d like to compliment their work as it is a very natural looking display. You can also set it up for high contrast and resolution should you prefer, or magnify the copy if you are sight impaired.

With a compact and lightweight design you can take the Reader Digital Book almost anywhere. And with plenty of internal memory, and a slot for optional removable memory cards, you can take hundreds of titles, user-selected Web content, or other supported documents for reading on the go. It will hold approximately 160 averaged sized eBooks in internal memory and hundreds more with optional removable memory cards.

The Reader Digital Book allows you to search, browse, discover, and buy thousands of new releases, classics and popular eBook titles from the Integrated eBook Store and other participating websites. You can even go to other sites that have unsecured eBooks in file formats that the Reader supports. This translates into an incredible amount of content suitable for the Reader. Simply transfer your own documents too for viewing on the move.

So, is it going to be a real reading revolution that this gadget provides? Well, it is extremely neat. However, with so many ultra portable machines now coming out, you do have to wonder how a gadget will do that only does one single thing – albeit doing that single thing very well.