It's here!

Thanks to the magic of E-Ink, the Kindle comes with setup instructions displayed on the screen itself. No plugging in is required.

We'll post updates on twitter about interesting things that we discover as we go.

What comes in the box:

• A quick start guide, complete with embossed letters
• An AC adapter
• The Kindle 2

Conveniently, the AC adapter can be used with either a wall outlet or a USB port.

Size comparison: Definitely not as big as a 17" MacBook Pro Unibody.

The Kindle 2 weighs only 10.2 ounces. Per pound, that makes the Kindle 2 even more expensive than the $2,799 MacBook Pro 17" Unibody we took apart last week.

The back. Nothing special about it.

Note the speaker holes on the bottom. We briefly tried the Text-to-Speech feature and were very impressed by the Kindle 2's ability to read the text displayed on-screen. But the honeymoon was quickly over and we started tearing into it.

Hopefully the insides will be more exciting... We'll let you know as soon as we can!

Prying the back off...

Getting inside is easy once you know how. We used some plastic opening tools and a metal spudger, and finally managed to get in.

The matte-gray top cover comes off first.

There are two Phillips screws to remove before the Aluminum back can be removed entirely.

We're in!

It's still not very pretty; just more white plastic.

Twenty Phillips screws hold the white plastic paneling in place.

Interestingly, nothing was attached to the large white and brown connector near the top of the board.

Remove two Phillips screws and the battery lifts out easily.

The battery is Model No. S11S01A. It's a 3.7 V, 1530 mAh lithium polymer battery. The battery weighs in at 31 grams, just over 10% of the Kindle's total weight.

The wireless card is also easily removable by removing two Phillips screws.

There are two antenna ports on the wireless card, but there was nothing connected to the AUX port in our Kindle.

After removing sixteen more screws, we've made it to the main PCB.

Everything exciting is still beneath silver EMI shields.

The Kindle was designed by Lab126, a secretive Amazon subsidiary based in Cupertino that designs consumer devices. Thus far, they have only released the Kindle 1 and 2.