The Kindle 2 screen size is 4.8" high, 3.6" width, 6" diameter (15.3 cm diameter). The weight is just over 10 oz (280 g). This is about the same page size and weight as a 517-page paperback book on my shelf. (A book by David Hume.)
Paperback book size (h, w): 7" x 4", 1.25" thick, page size excluding margins: 6" x 3.5" Kindle 2 overall gadget size: 8" x 5.3", 0.36" thick, page size excluding gadget 4.8" x 3.6" (as I said) So it is about an inch shorter. The book has 43 lines per page, probably 10 point font, with 429 words on one particular page, as follows: "no more contradiction than the affirmation, that it will rise. We should in vain, therefore, attempt to demonstrate its falsehood. Were it demonstratively false, it would imply a contradiction, and could never be distinctly conceived by the mind. It may, therefore, be a subject worthy of curiosity, to enquire what is the nature of that evidence which assures us of any real existence and matter of fact, beyond the present testimony of our senses, or the records of our memory. This part of philosophy, it is observable, has been little cultivated, either by the ancients or moderns; and therefore our doubts and errors, in the prosecution of so important an enquiry, may be the more excusable; while we march through such difficult paths without any guide or direction. They may even prove useful, by exciting curiosity, and destroying that implicit faith and security, which is the bane of all reasoning and free enquiry. The discovery of defects in the common philosophy, if any such there be, will not, I presume, be a discouragement, but rather an incitement, as is usual, to attempt something more full and satisfactory than has yet been proposed to the public. All reasonings concerning matter of fact seem to be founded on the relation of Cause and Effect. By means of that relation alone we can go beyond the evidence of our memory and senses. If you were to ask a man, why he believes any matter of fact, which is absent; for instance, that his friend is in the country, or in France; he would give you a reason; and this reason would be some other fact; as a letter received from him, or the knowledge of his former resolutions and promises. A man finding a watch or any other machine in a desert island, would conclude that there had once been men in that island. All our reasonings concerning fact are of the same nature. And here it is constantly supposed that there is a connexion between the present fact and that which is inferred from it. Were there nothing to bind them together, the inference would be entirely precarious. The hearing of an articulate voice and rational discourse in the dark assures us of the presence of some person: Why? because these are the effects of the human make and fabric, and closely connected with it. If we anatomize all the other reasonings of this nature, we shall find that they are founded on the relation of cause and effect, and that this relation is either near or remote, direct or collateral." - David Hume, "AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING" http://18th.eserver.org/hume-enquiry.html Based on my experience with the Kindle emulator, I doubt you could fit that much text on the screen, even with the smallest font. One nice thing about the Kindle is that you can zoom up the text size. I find this old book with 10 point text kind of hard to read. The Kindle 2.0 will read the text aloud. I believe this 7" x 4" format is the smallest paperback book in common use in the U.S. Incidentally, Japanese paperback books ("bunkobon") are smaller: 6" x 4.25". Actual page size excluding margins: 5" x 3.25". Almost the same as the Kindle! I predict these things will be a huge hit in Japan, if anyone there still reads books when Amazon gets around to introducing them. Japanese publishers are conservative and I predict they will not introduce them, although at present there is a widespread fad of reading novels on cell phones, which are specially written to be read in very short segments. - Jed
