When the Kindle 2 was first announced, I debated about whether or not to get it. Then I realized I had to same sort of debate with myself over the Kindle, and that ultimately there were a couple of times I regretted not having gotten one. One of those times was over Christmas break when I lugged a whole duffel bag full of books with us on vacation for about a week. Some of those books weren't/aren't available on Kindle (and I was without Internet connectivity, meaning I had no access to Safari), but quite a few are. Another time was when my 11 year-old finished the paperback he had brought for what was supposed to be a long roadtrip. He thought it would be enough, as he had also brought his video game gear, but he wasn't in the mood to play games and burned through the rest of the book in record time. I would have loved to have been able to download the next book in the series for him and then hand over the device. But I couldn't.

I also kept up with what Andy Leonard and Steve Jones had to say about their Kindles. Steve, in particular, was who eventually helped me decide to go ahead and pre-order the Kindle 2 based on what he has blogged about his experience with the Kindle. Steve reads a lot of books. Certainly a lot more than I have time to read in a year. However, if I keep up with my goals for the year, I'll average about a book a week when you include technical, faith/theology, and personal/professional development. It would also be nice to get a subscription or two via the Kindle each day rather than consuming all of that paper. I'm slowly but surely doing away with my print subscriptions wherever possible. I have found that the magazines just stack up and I never get around to reading them in that form, simply because they are too bulky to carry around between home and work. So for those subscriptions I can get on Kindle, I'll probably go ahead and do so, depending on how well that feature works out.

So I'm looking forward to getting my Kindle 2 towards the end of the week. I agree with Steve that it looks to be more of an incremental upgrade over the original Kindle, and for original Kindle owners there's probably not much justification to buy a new one. I could look for a used one, but I like the smaller form factor. If it delivers on time, that should work out perfect. I don't have anything in particular for next weekend scheduled, so that should be a good time to put it through its paces, both for me and my oldest. My youngest son (almost 10) is currently reading Brisingr and he's got it in hardback. Since that's the only book he's reading right now, he can lug that book around until he's done with it. After he's done, he can take a look at the Kindle.