I got my kindle 2 last week and started using it. While just by the sheer volume of books alone (pun intended) I don't think it will ever replace books - it certainly will eventually "contain" all of them. As the market grows, publishers will be foolish not to offer kindle editions of their books. So today you can't get ALL of your books electronically - some day soon you will.
The kindle 2, especially with the (now optional) leather cover, is just like reading a book - only a little better. For those of you who really really love the smell and feel of a real book (which I can understand?..not really) - do this. Go buy an old smelly book at a garage sale. Cut out the center of the pages and drop your kindle in like smuggling contraband. You'll get the tactile olfactory joys of book reading and the advantage of kindle reading.
I've been reading Stephen King's "UR", the kindle novel. In it, the main character Wesley loves books. He has tons of them. And that brought to mind perhaps one of the most attractive features of the kindle. Moving day. I've moved off to college and back from college and from a couple of cities before. Always the problem was books. They are heavy, take of lots of space, and the more you have the worse off you are. The penalty of being intellectual and a free-spirit. By distilling books down to the essence of the words they are, the kindle saves your back. Now moving day is tossing your kindle along with your netbook into your bag and going.
I find reading to be mentally stimulating in a very different way. Video games, TV, even surfing the web seem more passive and overlystimulating. The last one, web surfing, is like a mine field filled with the temptation to stop and throw coconuts at a monkey. If the web is a Red Bull, then the kindle is a nice chai latte.
One feature that I found I use a lot more than I thought is the dictionary. Being able to look up the meaning of a word without moving is really great.
Amazon has consistently under promised and over delivered in my experience and the kindle 2 is no exception. The kindle experience is as good as the smelly book experience to me, maybe even better. I would like to find a kindle kondom of silicon to make it beach and poolside worthy soon.
One of the most impressive features I found on the kindle was Amazon's non-proprietariness (not a real word I know). You can download content from other websites to your kindle and read it. Amazon seems more interested in providing you with a useful tool to read with than a locked-down ad-slathering add-on-requiring snarky system like other folks have made. It is a really open platform compared to many other digital systems.
The kindle 2 is going to distance Amazon from the other reader makers, while providing a solid platform to grow this market.
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