The made-over Kindle promises to turn pages 20 percent faster, offers up to one month of battery life, pulls content in Wi-Fi and free 3G , and doubles storage to accommodate 3,500 books. The price is $189. If you don't need the 3G capability, a Wi-Fi-only Kindle is expected Aug. 27 for $139.

At a $139 price point, some analysts are seeing commoditization of the Kindle. But Avi Greengart, an analyst at Current Analysis, disagrees: "I'm not calling it a commoditization because it's not a commodity. This is tied very closely to Amazon's bookstore, so it defies commoditization. This is getting into impulse-buy territory."

Just Buy the E-Books

Along with the new Kindle, Amazon is making sure the e-book-buying world knows that Kindle e-books can be read on other devices, including the iPod touch, iPhone, Mac, PC and Android-based devices. The bookseller also pointed to its Whispersync technology that keeps track of where a reader left off reading an e-book on one device so it picks up in the same place when the reader resumes reading on another device.

"The Kindle is a delivery mechanism for Amazon. Amazon is perfectly happy if you buy Kindle books and read them on the iPad or the PC," Greengart said. "But if you want a dedicated e-book reader, they are going to provide you with several different models at extremely aggressive prices so that you join the Amazon family rather than the Barnes & Noble family, the Sony family, or the Apple family."

The U.S. Kindle Store now offers more than 630,000 e-books, including new releases and best sellers. The majority are $9.99 or less, and more than 1.8 million public-domain classics are free. Amazon added nearly a quarter of a million books to the Kindle store in the last six months alone -- and the inventory promises to keep growing as publishers catch the e-book wave.

Impulse Buy, Impulse Carry

"Kindle is the best-selling product on Amazon for two years running. We lowered the price to $189 and sales growth tripled," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO. "Kindle Wi-Fi has all the same features, same bookstore, same high-contrast electronic paper display, and it's even a tiny bit lighter at 8.5 ounces. At this price point, many people are going to buy multiple units for the home and family."

The headline may be price, but Greengart said the redesign shouldn't be overlooked. Although the Kindle 2 was hardly bulky, he said, the slimming down of the new model makes it not only an impulse buy, but also an impulse carry.

"Even if you aren't sure if you are going to want to read a book on this trip, the Kindle is small, light and thin. It basically disappears. You might as well just toss it in the bag, too," Greengart said. "And there's amble reason to step up to the $189 and get the 3G version. If you use this while you are traveling, the ability to download a book literally anywhere is definitely a plus."

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