Users upset that Kindle 2 drops SD slot, replaceable battery

Users of the original Kindle are registering disapproval that the new Kindle 2, due out on Feb. 24, doesn't have a slot for an SD card or a removable battery.

"I'm pissed at Amazon," said one person named Vicki, commenting on an Amazon forum after the Kindle 2 was unveiled. "I've had my Kindle for almost a year and I really like it. When it dies, as all electronics do, the 'upgrade' will be a downgrade that won't be as useful as my current Kindle."

She joined more than 20 other current Kindle fans on the Amazon site voicing concerns about the Kindle 2's lack of an SD slot and its use of a battery that's not user accessible.

Elsewhere on the Amazon site , other fans griped about how the online retailer has given less-than-ideal treatment to original Kindle users with the announcement of Kindle 2. Amazon offers more than 1,000 discussion topics on its Kindle devices, underscoring the e-reader's popularity among users.

Many of the complaints that have bubbled up since the Kindle 2's unveiling Monday came from users who like to add an SD card to the original Kindle to add storage room for plenty of books. Some said the 2GB of storage offered in the Kindle 2 won't be enough.

Users also hit the battery change because they have grown accustomed to removing the battery in the original Kindle to reboot the device. After a year, many said the battery needed replacing anyway because it won't hold a charge.

While the changes seem like downgrades to some, Amazon's Kindle unit director, Charlie Tritschler, said both moves will actually improve the Kindle 2. "Compared to the original Kindle, the Kindle 2 makes it convenient to keep content in one place," Tritschler said today. And the built-in 2GB of storage in the Kindle 2 means 1.4GB is available to the user -- almost eight times the 180MB of storage offered in the original Kindle, he said.

"That's room for 1,500 books," Tritschler said, noting that Amazon backs up on its servers any book a Kindle user buys -- and can make it available to the reader at any time. "There's no need for additional storage."

Some users complained that Amazon might be eliminating the SD slot to force its Kindle customers into buying only Amazon content. But Tritschler said the Kindle 2 still allows users to access non-Amazon books, text files and even some music that is not protected under Digital Rights Management. They can do so via a USB cable connected to the Kindle 2 or through e-mail, since each Kindle has an email address, he said.

As for the battery, Tritschler said it was made non-removable to accommodate the Kindle 2's thinner size. "We really pushed to make it as thin as possible," yielding a device that is just .36-in. thick.

A non-removable battery requires no solid casing like the removable kind, taking up less space, he said. And Kindle 2 now has a chip for active battery management that was not in the original. That chip regulates charge flows and helps make the battery last for two weeks when not in wireless mode, or four days when connected wirelessly, he said.

For more enterprise computing news, visit Computerworld. Story copyright Computerworld, Inc.