The most notable feature of the Kindle 2 (Amazon.com’s long-awaited update to its groundbreaking but somewhat flawed electronic reading device) is that it’s possible to pick it up and not turn the page. This sounds like faint praise, but anyone using the original Kindle quickly found the oversized buttons covering both sides of the device made grasping it a delicate, stressful task — kind of like picking up a sea urchin. Anything less than perfect finger placement would lose your place.

Not so with the Kindle 2, which fixes that problem and a host of others through thoughtful, businesslike improvements and innovations.

Are the improvements big enough for the Kindle 2 to spark an iPod effect, causing bookstores to shutter, forests to grow unchecked and the tomes on our shelves to disappear, replaced by plants and bobble-head dolls? Not any time soon.

Continue reading the Kindle 2 Review.