The Kindle 2 paperless book from Amazon is on its way and it’s looking like it’s made some nice improvements over the first Amazon Kindle.

The Kindle 2 is extremely thin at just over 1/3 of an inch and weighs only 10.2 ounces, which is about the same as a typical paperback novel.

It also lets you download books from anywhere without even needing a Wi-Fi connection since, like the iPhone, it runs on 3G wireless. It can download books in less than a minute and there’s no additional monthly costs or service fees.

Its battery longevity has been improved by 25 percent which means it will allow for four days of reading if the wireless connection is left on for two weeks if it’s off. It turns pages 20 percent faster and now can hold over 1,500 books (2 gigs of internal memory). Those are books that don’t require the harvesting of any trees which is the biggest attraction to us for this eco-friendly gadget.

It also includes what Amazon calls the Read-to-Me function, which allows the Kindle 2 to read anything to you. We’re not too sure how effective or useful this might prove but it’s there if this is the sort of function you might be looking for.

The display is the same display as used by the first Kindle which is fine. The e-ink technology is excellent and reads almost like a real book.

Amazon currently boasts a book selection with over 230,000 titles and the prices tend to be significantly less than what you would pay if you bought the book in a store.

While we are huge fans of the traditional book format we think with a good display like e-ink we will probably be weaned off of our paper book addiction. This brings us to the bad news for the Kindle 2, the price. At $359 USD it’s a bit steep. We may wait a while and see if the cost comes down before we grab this slick little eco-technology.

If you’re ready to jump in feet first you can head over to Amazon and pre-order the Kindle 2 today.