Amazon Kindle 2 Thinner Than iPhone, Reads Books to You

Update: Video and photos added after the jump.

As expected, Amazon has announced the new Kindle 2.0 today at its press event at the Morgan Library in New York. And it’s faster and definitely thinner. The new Kindle is just 0.36 inches thick. Yes, thinner than the iPhone. 25 percent thinner in fact. Kindle 2 has also added a five-way controller that aids navigation and speech to text capability. Price is $359.

Latest E-ink display has 16 shades of gray vs. four, 20 percent faster page turnes, and battery last 25 percent longer. Can read two weeks on single charge. Holds over 1,500 books (a lot more storage). Whispernet 3G still works the same, and newspapers, magzines, and blogs are delivered automatically.

New feature is Whispersync, which means you can sync content among devices and you’ll be able to keep your current page/save your progres..Amazon is expected to announce Kindle 2 today, and Jeff Bezos just took the stage here at the Morgan Library in New York.

Jeff Bezos demonstrated the five-way navigation control in The New York Times, making it easy to toggle between business stories, for example. Within books you can easily look up words, like chary. No need to have the dictionary handy when you read.

Very easy to change font size, and now Kindle has text to speech capability so device can read to you. Voice sounds computerized and stilted, but it works. You can press the space button to pause listening.

When Stephen King took the stage to read from his new exclusive Kindle story, he referred to this feature as a GPS Voice but then said it was a great feature. The novella is called Ur, and it’s only on Kindle. You can pre-order it today.

Prices for titles are $9.99 each, and Amazon now has 230,000 titles in its library ready for download. New content providers include USA Today, The New Yorker, and Gizmodo.

Watch our hands-on video with the Kindle 2 below.