The Amazon suits told us this morning during the press event that the new and improved Kindle is 20x 20% faster than the first generation; we found that isn’t the case.
We spent some time with the two side-by-side and we can’t see any difference at all between the two models. The K2 might have a faster processor but maybe the extra CPU cycles are being redirected to power the improved screen instead of making pages load quicker. Whatever the excuse Amazon comes up with, the proof is in the above video that the new Kindle isn’t faster than the original.
UPDATE – John here. Matt was a little harsh on the video because of the various factors at play here. Book length is obviously one and this was a decidedly unscientific test. All I can say is that the Kindle 2 changed pages with more aplomb than the K1. The K1 would black out the page completely and this redraws things almost immediately, adding to the perception of speed.