Gadget Of The Week: Kindle 2

While it doesn't quite seem to merit all the hype, Amazon did indeed unveil the Kindle 2 today at New York's Morgan Library & Museum. What's new? 25% better battery life, almost twice as thin (0.36 inches compared to 0.7), an eightfold increase in storage space from 256MB to 2GB, and an improvement from 4-color grayscale to 16-color grayscale.

Despite the shrinking width, Kindle 2 is only a tenth of an ounce lighter than its predecessor.

Some buttons have been shuffled about, and there's a new text-to-speech reader, but the biggest feature of the Kindle, its pricetag, remains unchanged at $359.

With no real newness to push demand beyond the mobile professional set and a pricetag higher than most game consoles, Kindle 2 is still way too expensive when you consider the relative cheapness of books, which may be bulkier but won't fill your heart with buyer's remorse.

And Stephen King, who was brought onstage at one point to pitch his new Kindle-exclusive story Ur, which is about a magical pink Kindle, should be ashamed of himself.