Amazon.com welcomes you to a great digital reading experience: the Kindle 2.

The highly-anticipated device shipped one day sooner than the company had previously scheduled. For those of you who were on vacation during the past couple of days and don’t have a general idea about the differences between the Kindle 2 and its predecessor, the Kindle Reader, here’s a short list of the improvements of recently-released e-book reader over its predecessor:

-    improved design - the Kindle 2 is thinner, lighter (about one-third of an inch and 10.2 ounces) and slicker;
-    better placed buttons - you won’t have the problem of unintentionally turning pages or entering the menu anymore;
-    improved display - it can display 16 shades of gray on its 6-inch screen;
-    longer battery life (about two weeks if you turn its wireless radio off and four days with the radio on), about 25% longer than in the Kindle 1;
-    increased internal memory - the Kindle 2 has 2GB (1.4GB available for content) which means you can store up to 1,500 books, 8 times more than you could store on the Kindle 1;
-    a five-way navigation control instead of the Kindle 1 scroll wheel;
-    a text-to-speech feature that allows the device to read aloud to users;
-    a built-in 250,000-word New Oxford American Dictionary.

As expected, the reading experience is fantastic. The e-ink simulates real paper with clean, crisp lettering which makes it easier on the eyes. You can adjust font size and the pages turn 20% faster than in the previous version, just as Amazon promised. The fact that the device is refreshing the entire screen when a page is turned is hardly noticeable. No more noticeable than turning a page of a real book.

The aforementioned dictionary is also a very cool feature that the Kindle 2 brings. By simply directing the on-screen cursor to the beginning of a word, one can see the definition of the word on the bottom of the page. For more details on that word, you just have to click on it.

Nevertheless, the feature that sets the Kindle 2 above the competition is the wireless Whispersync and the way it handles.

The Kindle is definitely worth the $359.

However, if you do not have a Kindle 2, there are a number of sites where you can purchase or download books free of charge. Here are three of the most important e-book sites:
-    Project Gutenberg
-    Fictionwise
-    Google Book Search.