Amazon’s Kindle 2 has arrived in the hands of those lucky enough to get the early pre-orders. Luckily WebProNews was among the first batch of recipients. So let’s take a look at this bad boy.

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The Kindle 2 has the thickness of a magazine at just over a third of an inch. It is also lighter than the average paperback at 10.2 ounces in weight. You can easily get books delivered to your device in less than a minute without a PC, and the battery life is 25% longer than the previous incarnation.

The display on the Kindle 2 is better than before with 16 shades of gray "for clear text and even crisper images." It also turns pages 20% faster than the previous model.

The most talked about new feature of the Kindle 2 is probably the text-to-speech feature, which basically transfers your books (not to mention blogs, magazines, and newspapers) into audio books. This feature ought to attract even those hesitant readers we all know.

There are currently over 240,000 publications available for the Kindle, and the Kindle 2′s storage capacity allows for over 1,500 books. Best Sellers and New Releases cost $9.99, unless marked otherwise.

More on the Kindle 2 here. Stay tuned to the WebProNews Video Blog for exclusive footage of the Kindle 2.