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All the hype today is about a pending announcement tomorrow on a larger Kindle, but I felt it would be helpful to take a moment to express what I like, and don’t like about the Kindle 2 that I ordered over two months ago. I’m glad I bought it, but there are definitely some positives and negatives to its design. Hopefully, these things I’m pointing out will help you decide whether the Kindle 2, or the new Kindle coming out tomorrow, is right for you.

First, here are three things I like about the Kindle 2:

1) It puts a lot of reading material in a small, light package. Amazon claims it will hold 1500 books. That’s impressive for something that is less than 1/2” thick and just over 10 oz. In the past when I travelled, I often packed many books, articles, reports, etc. These take up room in a suitcase, and add considerable weight to be lugged around. Now, most of my current reading material goes wirelessly into my Kindle and I have a virtual library at my disposal in a small, light package. This not only includes books, but also PDFs, Word docs, html documents, etc. It’s easy to wirelessly transfer all this onto your Kindle.

2) The battery life is not an issue (at least if wireless access is turned off). Even with wireless access on, the Kindle will work for days, but if you have wireless turned off, it will go for a couple of weeks on a charge. A few months ago, I was on an expedition and we were away from electricity for almost nine days. There was plenty of tent time where I would have enjoyed having a wealth of reading material available in a light package that didn’t need frequent recharging. The Kindle 2 makes that possible. Most people probably don’t have to worry about going two weeks without charging their Kindle, but this feature also makes it friendly to have around because it feels more like a book and less like a computer.

3) It is easy on the eyes. Amazon’s “electronic ink” sounded like marketing hype when I first heard about it, but the text really is easy to read – even on a bright day outside. This feature can make a big difference if you are reading for an hour or two at a time.

Now, what I don’t like about the Kindle 2:

1) The user interface is clunky. I own an iPhone, and as far as I am concerned, the tactile user experience bestowed by that machine is second-to-none. Even after two months of use, I keep wanting to touch the Kindle 2 screen to turn the page and make other things happen easily. Unfortunately, you have to navigate around with a 5-way controller that feels so yesterday to me. The more information you get in your Kindle 2, the more frustrated you’ll get because the lack of a sophisticated user interface makes it ponderous to categorize, customize, and modify things to your benefit and liking. If Apple had a larger iPhone-like device that could do what the Kindle does, I’d switch in a heartbeat, even if I had to charge it a lot more often. Apple’s touch-based user interface seems to be the next evolution for reading all sorts of content – including books, and enriching that content with web access. Kindle 2’s interface seems more like it is trying to emulate reading as it is today. It’s good, but it really isn’t the bold step I think is needed to complete the revolution.

2) I miss the color. The Kindle 2 is great for novels, but anything that has 4-color photos, charts and other visual information suffers from the grayscale limitations of the Kindle 2. Amazon “boasts 16 shades of gray.” Yikes – that is like going back to some of the first Macintosh computers over 20 years ago! This is not “one giant leap for mankind.” Again, for books that require you to be able to read and see other visual material on the page, the size of the Kindle 2 screen is also a drawback. It sounds like Amazon might be addressing that with their new larger Kindle announcement tomorrow.

3) Lack of a familiar, robust Web browser. The world isn’t isolated in “content stacks” anymore. Books need to be instantly integrated with a rich variety of other content that lives on the Web. I feel lost when I am reading something and I don’t have immediate access to the Web to add context to the experience with other material, and to Tweet, blog, or use email to send friends and associates some thoughts. There are reports that the new Kindle announced tomorrow will have expanded browser capabilities. I don’t want another browser – especially one that isn’t ready for prime time. There are already wonderful browsers out there such as Firefox, Safari and Opera that work on both PCs and Macs. Please use a browser that is already tested and familiar to people. And, as I mentioned in the point above. Navigating the Web on a Kindle in 16 shades of gray with a 5-way controller seems unrewarding at the least.

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Amazon is to be commended for taking the first steps to making books and other digital content more accessible, but this technology has a long way to go. I’d like to see the competition heat up in this area, so we can all arrive at the future sooner.

Oh, and one other thing. I’m already trying to think what I’ll do with all those empty bookshelves when the future arrives. They’ll probably end up somewhere with those handy CD shelves many of us used to own to store our music collection.