Behind Your Business

Back in August, Nicholson Baker wrote a devastating review of the Kindle 2 in the New Yorker. Noting that everyone from Newsweek to the tech blogs to just-plain-folks was calling the new Kindle "important," Baker gave Amazon's latest version of the device a thorough test-read. He was unimpressed, to put it mildly.

"The problem was not that the screen was in black-and-white; if it had really been black-and-white, that would have been fine. The problem was that the screen was gray. And it wasn't just gray; it was a greenish, sickly gray," Baker wrote.

"This was what they were calling e-paper? This four-by-five window onto an overcast afternoon? Where was paper white, or paper cream? Forget RGB or CMYK. Where were sharp black letters laid out like lacquered chopsticks on a clean tablecloth?"

PDF, Rotation Improvements

Since the introduction of the Kindle 2 in February, Amazon has also released a higher-end product, the Kindle DX, which offered a longer battery life and wide-screen viewing.

Now Amazon has released an improved Kindle 2, with a battery that lasts 85 percent longer than previously, and a software upgrade that supports PDF viewing and rotation.

Owners of older Kindle 2 devices will get an automatic update in the near future, but impatient users will be able to download the update now and transfer the enhancements to their Kindle via USB.

Needed Improvements

The Dvice blog offered some impressions of the upgrade. Unlike the iPhone, Kindle books still don't automatically change when the user rotates the device. Users have to press a button and then choose an orientation and keyboard placement, the site said. Still, "it works well, spreading the text out from edge to edge in either portrait or landscape orientation."

Dvice also reported that while the Kindle 2 can now read native PDF files, users still can't zoom in...