K2 is thin. The leather case I purchased for K2 opens like a book, but the front cover will bend all the way around, meaning there is no strain on my hand to keep my place in the book as I turn from page-to-page. It's light. It's thin and portable and travels very well.
I love that I can adjust the type size at will. I'm blessed to have reasonably good eyesight and can therefore read, comfortably, at the smallest type setting. That will change one day. Some of you might be at that point already. It's a simple adjustment to make and a great feature. No longer will you need special books with large print. K2 does that for you.
K2 has no backlight. You will still need proper external light sources to read, just as you would if you were reading a book. What this means is battery life is better than a laptop or smartphone that must power a bright screen. More importantly, it also means K2 is far more 'eye-friendly' than most electronic displays you encounter.
I love the selection. There are, as of this writing, over 285,000 titles available. I've run in to a few titles I'd like to have for my K2 that aren't presently available, but that 285,000 represents a vast array of authors, styles, and eras. New titles are constantly becoming available, whether they're new books being published for the first time or books from another time now being welcomed to the Kindle family. I suppose there are a few folks who won't find what they're looking for but that won't last forever. Notable holdouts right now are the Harry Potter series and John Grisham's novels. I don't expect them to remain unavailable for long.
Speaking of selection, the shopping experience and process of getting books on your K2 is about as easy as can be. If you're even remotely sophisticated in the ways of e-commerce, you'll have no problem getting books on your K2. You don't have to host the files on your computer hard drive if you don't want to, as your purchases are managed through your Amazon account. Books can be made available through a free, wireless delivery using Kindle's built-in 3G data capability (think iPhone, Blackberry, etc) or using your computer, the internet, and a USB connection.
I love that The New Oxford American Dictionary is included on the device and the way it can be integrated into the reading experience. Don't know what a word means? You can easily point a cursor to that word and the definition appears at the bottom of the screen. Should the definition be truncated, you can push forward to the dictionary to get the full definition and quickly return to your page.
Article comments
1 - MarkSaleski
ahhhh...this explains the recent rash of book reviews.
i tell you, if you ever see a review like this coming from me, it's a sure sign of the apocalypse. ;-)
2 - Josh Hathaway
Believe me, I thought about that as I purchased and started using it. Like I mention in the review, as obstinate as I am about digital music I'm shocked I love my Kindle but I really, really do.