Another month, another version of the Kindle. I’ve been using a Kindle since it was shaped like a very thin doorstop and I’m delighted each time I see a new version. The latest version is the DX, a monstrous 9-inch version of the smaller Kindle 2 that supports direct PDF reading without conversion.
Why am I interested in the Kindle? Well, I already have a first-gen Kindle so I’m not too keen on upgrading immediately. But I’ve been waiting for Amazon to solve something with the Kindle DX that has been nagging me for quite a while. You see, I have a problem. I don’t want to read the New York Times on paper anymore but paper seems like the only logical way to read it. Reading the newspaper on a gadget is rude and dangerous – especially with toddlers around the house. It’s a tough sell to have a gadget at the breakfast table. But then I know that I’ll never read it on the desktop whether through the Times Reader or any other source. So the DX sounded great. I has all of the features of the current Kindle plus rotational sensing and a beautiful, huge screen that might just fit the entire NYT front page and not just one article. So that’s why I wanted to see the DX.
Photo Gallery by Picturesurf
For context, here is what we said about the K2. We didn’t formally review it.
The DX is basically a 9.7-inch reading device. It has a small keyboard, navigation buttons only on the right side, and uses an improved version of the e-ink screen that displays gray scale with surprising fidelity. It has native PDF support and can store up to 3,500 books. It costs $489.00 and will be available next week.
Like the original Kindle the device has a wireless feature that lets you download books over the air but you can also drag books – basically Amazon’s proprietary format – and PDFs right onto the device via USB. It can last for up to 4 days with wireless on. It also reads your books aloud to you, where applicable. Some publishers are selectively shutting this feature down.
The Bad
First the cons. The Kindle DX is heavy. It’s heavier than the original Kindle by over nine ounces. It’s not much, but clearly Mosso and I share a strange affliction called “Ouch, our wrists hurt holding this thing.” It’s a big device. It works best on a table.
The second problem is the auto-rotation. If you move the Kindle a little too much in any direction, the screen rotates. It’s a good feature if you’re reading a newspaper or magazine, for example, but it’s not so good if you’re nodding off in bed.
The Good
Now the pros. This thing is quite easy to read books on. Each page holds a multitude more words than the original devices and you rarely have to press the page buttons – there’s just more real estate. Images are crisp and clear and books can be viewed horizontally.
Them there sure is a lot of words.
The page size also makes for an easier read although all that grey does get tiring. This thing is good for heavy duty reading. The annotations and notes system is good for research as it drags the notes off of the book and onto an Amazon website – a huge plus for students and scholars. My original complaint with the Kindle 2 was that it wasn’t good for research. This model has remedied all of those concerns.
Newspaper reading is a bit of sticking point. It is easier to browse stories on this larger screen and the nature of news stories allows many of them to fit on one or two pages as opposed to the endless parade of pages on the smaller Kindles. I’m going to be trying to read the paper on this for the next month and I’ll report back when I put the DX through those demanding paces. However, I understand that there are certain formatting considerations here that only updates to the software and hardware can fix.
In short, this is a bigger Kindle. But is it the Kindle for you?
Bottom Line
I’m convinced that the Kindle – as a brand – is the book reader to buy. Unless you’re into piracy, getting first run books onto any other reader is too convoluted and the UI and Kindle system is the best, hands down. I’ve used the Sony Reader and a few other e-readers and the Kindle is made for real readers i.e. people who read and want a seamless reading experience. If you like to read, get one. If you like to download PDFs and TXT files – say you’re a slash fiction fan – get something else.
That said, the DX isn’t the Kindle for the average reader. The Kindle proper, a 6-inch model that is quite light and nice, is the best they offer. Anecdotally, here is the best metaphor I can come up with to the difference between the Kindle and the Kindle DX. When my buddy worked at Dairy Queen we used to go through the drive thru and order a Blizzard, a concoction of ice cream and candy and other stuff that would have put a horse into diabetic shock. But instead of making the Blizzard in the normal manner, our friend would drop in little treats like a whole brownie or five scoops of M&Ms. The Kindle is a regular Blizzard while the Kindle DX is my friend’s extra-packed Blizzard. It’s more of a good thing, and sometimes that can be bad.
If you have a specific need for a bigger screen i.e. you’re doing doctoral research and intend to upload a lot of PDFs, get the DX. Otherwise, even if you’re a student reading textbooks and novels you’ll probably be better off with the smaller, cheaper model. It’s more portable and it has all of the same functions.
As for price, I can’t help you. $500 is a lot for a Kindle. But this is the best e-reader out there. It’s a complex and unique tool. You pay for that complexity.
And what about newspaper reading? The jury is still out. But we’re coming closer and closer to a paperless publishing industry and these are just baby steps along a long road.
How sharp is the contrast between the text and the background? Is the text dark (black) or grey? Grey would be harder to read.
It is exactly like a book in the sense that it depends on the lighting. In a bright room, the text is black and the background is almost white. In a darker room, the background is a lot more grey than it is white. It is still readable, but requires more effort.
It’s about 80% black (gray) text on a 25% gray background. Useless unless you’re in a WELL lit room, daylight, or you bump the font size up to about 24pt.
I’ve sent back the 1st and 2nd gen versions because by the time you’ve bumped up the text large enough to compensate for the poor contrast under average lighting, you can only see a paragraph of text.
Heck. I can see more text on the iPhone.
I got my DX a couple of days ago and the first reaction was exactly like your reaction – Damn this thing is heavy. But then I realized that it is really only heavy because I have been using the first generation one exclusively to read books for about a year now. When I got home, I picked up my favorite Hardback book (Stephen King’s The Stand) and no longer thought that the DX was that heavy.
It is a beautiful and very useful device regardless of its weight.
even if I’m not much of a reader, I’ll definitely buy this stuff.. It’s really cute and sleek. :)
This is the best of the worst and def your best bet at this moment. It is good because it makes buying and carrying books easy. It also lets you buy books right when people rec. them (often not a good idea) but that is about it.
The Kindle, like all other ereaders, falls short in its ability to let you use it for deep research and community sharing. Why would I want to copy notes to amazon and then go back to them to copy them to where I really want them to go? Thanks…
The interface is still so bad. Its like we just want one of these devices to FINALLY be good but they keep making them so crappy so we have finally lowered out expectations. At least its better than a Sony…
Format aside I think the iPhone with 3.0 update will be a much better tool to let readers enjoy and share information in ways they really want to. The way we expect to use books has fundamentally changed and Kindle is on a trajectory to miss that in a big way.
Hi, I wonder whether it is possible to view pdf in other languages such as Russian, Japanese, etc. I need to read these for my work.
Just tried it on my Kindle DX with a PDF that was in hebrew and it works fine.
Weird. In that first photograph, those kids look WAY older on the kindle than in print.
Hahahaha
Too expensive. Locked into an antiquated system called DRM. Forces you to rent books from Amazon instead of actually owning them.
As a device, it’s interesting. But until they make the price reasonable and drop the “features” that lock you into Amazon, then there’s no point. Nevermind the fact that it won’t work outside of the USA.
I’m not interested in purchasing data, I can get data free off of the Internet. If the publishers want to sell me something, then they should include the eBook with the regular book the same as we’re getting “digital copies” of movies when we purchase DVDs.
These devices should cost around $150-200, until then there will be no penetration into the market and they’ll just be a fancy toy.
That is not exactly true…
Books purchased from Amazon are purchased and not rented. You can use them on any device that can read the format. That is why Amazon allows Kindles that are all registered under the same account to read the books without charging extra.
Also, you don’t have to buy books from Amazon. You can use PDFs or MOBI files and upload them directly to the device and read them without a problem.
The price itself is the only issue with the device. Amazon will need to figure out ways of making it cheaper (like offering a WIFI version instead of the Sprint cellular connection) or create subsidized programs similar to what audio books vendors did. Buy the device at a discounted price but lock you into a 1 year contract.
“That is why Amazon allows Kindles that are all registered under the same account to read the books without charging extra.”
Exactly. That’s why they’re rented. “registered under the same account.” What happens when Amazon goes out of business or decides it isn’t going to run some registration server anymore?
If that doesn’t seem likely, recall that Walmart was going to shut down its Microsoft music DRM servers.
The DRM content is rented and available to you as long as Amazon chooses to run the DRM scheme–or until you crack and remove the DRM.
“You can use PDFs”
Does the device flow the PDFs? That is, does it ignore the PDF line breaks and wrap the text to fit the screen? Or does it simply take a printed page and shrink it down to the screen–the same behavior that makes most PDFs unbearable to read on screen unless you have a huge monitor?
Most people think that it is Amazon who wants to DRM content on the device. That is not true. It is the publishers who call the shots on what Amazon can or can’t do with the content they own.
Look at Apple. They were selling DRMed music, i did not hear anyone complain? Amazon broke the shackles by providing DRM free music. How? Cause the production companies were being dictated by Apple on what price they would get for the songs sold. So they went with Amazon to create an alternative to Apple and break the monopoly and the arm twisting.
Amazon would have loved to do the same here but the content providers need to agree.
Next time you go buy a book, write a mail to the publishers that you want the book in a DRM free e-book format. Don’t blame Amazon for something they have no control over.
It’ll mount as a USB drive and accept DRM-free documents you throw at it. Check out FeedBooks.com. Those are all free and DRM free. If you can find a place to sell you a DRM-free ebook, you can put it on the Kindle. And yes, these books ignore line breaks and wrap to the screen as you change text size.
When will Amazon sell the Kindle overseas?
Why won’t they open it up in markets such as Australia?
Okay,our wireless networks may not be Amazon friendly,but so what? We can just ‘drag n drop’ books,newspapers via USB.
What is the problem here?
“Reading the newspaper on a gadget is rude and dangerous – especially with toddlers around the house.”
Someone please explain what the hell this means. Is the Kindle DX one of these new toddler-digesting gadgets we keep hearing about?
Thanks!
It is exactly like a book in the sense that it depends on the lighting.
So I’m supposed to carry an iPhone, a laptop AND an E-reader? Now way.
This is just the latest round of format wars where corporations tie content to proprietary formats to proprietary display technologies and single-point distribution sources. Remember when we had to buy CDs because the record industry wanted us to believe that the music was permanently embedded in them? Have you notived how beloved they are today because of it? And an EBook is mostly a text file!
I’ve been reading Richard Geller’s beautiful Adobe AIR EBooks from http://www.aSiteAboutSomething.com on my laptop. They’re almost like reading a physical book, were developed with web technologies available to anyone, and didn’t require approval or markup by anybody’s app store.
Kindle? Why?
Why do I own an e-reader (not a Kindle, I’m not in the US) when I also own a laptop and a PDA?
Simple – much better screen _for reading_ (I find it easier on the eyes than most books), much better battery life, and I don’t need to be a body-builder to hold it up. My reader goes everywhere I do.
It’s like asking me why I own a proper corkscrew when my Swiss Army knife can open bottles.
Not bad reasons, but I suggest you look at Geller’s books. The first one is a free download. Though a monitor is certainly brighter, there are other advantages to his on-screen reading experience.
…my opinion of Kindle can be summed up as simply adoration!…I had a gazillion PDF’s stored on my computers!…99% I have little more than glanced at because reading them on a computer was inconvenient or physically disagreeable (five minutes reading something on a monitor is the most I can handle)…Kindle 2 was okay but you had to convert PDF’s to “prc” files before loading them…DX, on the other hand, does the conversion itself…and so far, overall, it works BEAUTIFULLY!!!…granted DX isn’t perfect — e.g. you can’t annotate or highlight PDF’s…but that’s no big deal for me…another AMAZING thing I discovered was that you can download non-English books, convert them to PDF’s, and the DX will TRANSLATE them into English for you!…I would have liked a little stronger contrast with a paler background but reading is still very comfortable….I think the Kindle, ultimately, will turn out to be a revolutionary device…imagine never having to go to the libary because you simply carry around the library with you!…no more late fees!!…
Complex? How so? It shows static text and grey scale pictures. Seems pretty simple to me.
I wish someone like Casio would wade into this market with a really cheap tacky reader for the school kids.
Dear Amazon,
Why does the PDF reader lack support for embedded
bookmarks?
Dear Amazon,
When I plug the DX into the PC, it allows me to
create subdirs and copy files into subdirs.
When I use the DX to browse; it collapses the
subdirs and their respective contents into a single
(flat) list. WTF?
In defense of the Kindle product line…
1. To those who think it is more economical to download a book onto their pc or laptop rather than purchase a kindle: You obviously don’t read much, and apparently you have never stared at a computer screen for extended periods of time. The money you save by reading your book on your computer will not cover the anguish of a migraine that follows from squinting at a computer screen for hours on end.
The Kindle 2 and DX are easy on the eyes. A computer screen is strain on the eyes.
2. To those that think that carrying one more gadget in your bag is excess: Have you ever carried a full day worth of college level course textbooks with you in one bag?
The potential to carry 1500 to 3500 books around in a small contained unit is enormous. I am in the military and in college. I have deployed for extended periods of time. I wish I did not have to lug around 15 books with me whenever I got shipped out, only to be forced to leave those plus the extra books that I had shipped over because they exceeded my weight allowance for redeployment back to the U.S.
Think of the potential of outfitting a start-up school in, say, Afghanistan with a digital library! I foresee a future where Kindle will one day be able to convert automatically from one language to another at the push of a button to aide with barriers of communication between student and teacher.
If you are like me and you have limited space to store your favorite books, then Kindle can be a godsend.
The current capabilities of the Kindle are enormous, but the potential of the Kindle is infinite.
3. To those that think the price is too high: Well, I do agree with that–to an extent. However, the law of supply and demand, and the inevitable high entry price of new technology based products will hopefully be followed by lower prices in the future.
In theory, with the advent of the Kindle, the outrageous price of textbooks should decline when they are formatted for digital readers. Constantly keeping textbooks updated is a heavy burden pushed onto the consumer in the form of ever increasing publishing costs. This can be mitigated with a digital based system that is easily updated.
I would like to see a day when you can literally rent books from a library database for a limited time, at a minimal cost. But, for now, the price is what it is. No matter how you cut it, the library is the most cost effective source for reading out there.
4. If you are like me and you have a large dictionary the size of two phone books in your room and a smaller one that you carry with you at all times, then the Kindles’ ability to allow the user to highlight and search a vaguely understood or completly new word is awesome!
I am an active reader, so I can never continue my reading if I do not fully understand a word, or I can’t derive the meaning from the context of the sentence.
ENDSTATE: I don’t actually own a Kindle, yet :) , but, with a little luck, I will be able to afford one in the near future (before my next deployment). Until then, I can be found at my local library almost every week.
Kindle is a great use for technology. It might even be “cool” enough to convince kids to pick one up and actually benefit from technology rather than burn their brains out playing video games, or become victims of some sort while perusing the internet, or get caught up in prebubescent pedantry while “sex texting” their grade school crush.
Keep the critiques coming, for that is the only way Kindle will be improved, but the uninformed and baseless bashing is not needed.
I own a kindle 1 and it changed my life. Most of the books I want to read are available free (expired copyrights) and reading on a Kindle is better and faster than reading an actual paperback.
The only real problem is that I live in Europe and I had to ask an American friend to buy me one and ship it to me as Amazon wouldn’t… it seems like I’ll be doing the same with the DX. The Kindle 1 paid itself back in less than one year.
I’m wondering– most PDFs I own and read are letter-sized or A4 sized. I wonder how they would display on the DX screen.
Both the Kindle DX and Kindle 2 are good values. If you only read books, the Kindle 2 is probably better. If you already own a Kindle 2, and don’t read PDF’s, I recommend keeping your Kindle 2. If you read a lot of pdf’s or newspapers, or you like to read with large fonts, you’ll be happier with the DX. For my needs, I like theKindle DX more.
The Kindle DX also comes with a native PDF reader which is not available in the Kindle 2 device. This makes it very easy to carry your office documents and other e-books without the need for conversion.
I think the Kindle DX is a qualified success. Text in manuscripts looks great. Figures from manuscripts do not render well in portrait mode if there is a lot of detail; switching to landscape mode helps substantially. Zoom into individual images/sections of PDFs would be welcome.
I think I expected the Kindle DX to replace the 2, but instead it’s going to complement it. I’ll use the DX at home and the 2 when I go elsewhere. The DX is too big to carry around, since I can’t just tuck it in my purse as I do with the 2. The thing that saves me is the Sync function.