I wasn’t trying to make a grand statement or anything, but several hours after placing my pre-order for the new Kindle 2 I decided to cancel it.

I’d been mulling over the Kindle for quite sometime. I first saw the Kindle “in the wild” at Wordcamp when Josh Bancroft(of tiny screenfuls) whipped it out of his bag and into my hands. I was honestly quite impressed at first by the device and a few weeks later I even had a Kindle 1.0 in my Amazon cart $50 Oprah coupon in hand, just about to expire. But the reason I didn’t pull the trigger then is different than why I decided to cancel my pre-order now.

With the Kindle 1.0 I knew full well I would be paying to be an early adopter. For years I’ve pledged that I would step off the bleeding edge and let other people go through the pain and suffering of a first generation product. This pledge has served me well (I do own an iPhone, but happily waited until the 2nd Generation 3G was released).

So when the Kindle 2 was announced I decided it was time to take the plunge. I hopped onto Amazon and put in my pre-order to ‘save my place in line’…and then I started to think about it.

Why was I ordering a Kindle 2? Well first off, it’s no secret I am passionate about reading. I read almost every single night, exhausted or not. So why not step up and invest in a device that is centered around reading? In addition to being a big book reader, I am also a very faithful newspaper reader, and this winter I found myself paperless more often than not. So the idea of getting the paper digitally delivered sounded fantastic.

Yet I enjoy sitting with my morning paper, flipping through it in a way no device enables me to. I’m not searching for information when I read a paper, I’m stumbling through it. I’m sure the newspaper as we know it is an endangered species. So why hasten its demise, why give up something I really enjoy.

As I thought about carrying around a device that holds several thousand books, I really thought about my reading experience. With music I love being able to switch between thousands of albums at a click of a button. Music is whimsical – at one moment I may be in the mood for one song and then for another. Books on the other hand aren’t. I’m extremely ‘loyal’ when it comes to a book. I pick up a book and read it cover to cover. I don’t start up other books, leave one half read while I start another. So what’s the real benefit of carrying around so many books?

I am also a night reader, and the digital paper, while fantastic for day reading really doesn’t have any real benefit at night. I’d still be clamping my old book light to the device.

Then there’s that city square block of books called Powells that we have in our fair city. It’s absurd how blaze Portlanders get about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah a whole city block of books…been there…done that… But it is astounding, and I derive a lot of pleasure walking through the stacks of physical books, out to discover a book I may know nothing about. I just couldn’t see giving up that experience and dedicating all my book business to Amazon. Not that I don’t like Amazon, I do, but after investing $350 in a reading device I’d be hard pressed to justify buying non-Kindle books.

Lastly there’s that price tag – $350. It’s not that I couldn’t justify it. I work extremely hard and I do make it a point to reward myself, and so if the Kindle were something I really wanted and needed I’d do it. At $350 the Kindle is really an investment, and at that price if you’re going to buy it, you need to be serious about using it.

For what it is I think the Kindle 2 is a pretty impressive device, G3 whisper-net updates, long battery life, possible over the air sync-hing with other devices, RSS delivery and more. Amazon should be proud of their new product. But for me, as a lifelong reader, I’m just not ready for it. Tonight I plan to curl up with Tom Petrota’s The Abstinence Teacher for the last 50 pages and at the end I’ll triumphantly close the book, set it down on my nightstand and pick up Ray Banks Sucker Punch. It’s the same book I easily toted with me today and read while my kids were at their Kung-Fu class. I didn’t get any ooohs and ahhhs for reading it, but I can say I enjoyed every minute.