Introducing the Kindle DX
Amazon introduced the Kindle DX at a press event this morning. It's the big screen Kindle everyone's been waiting for, but it comes with a big screen price: $489.00.
What do you get for that? Well, it's two inches taller and two inches wider than the normal Kindle, making it about an inch smaller than an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper. This is important because it's the first Kindle to offer a native PDF viewer that displays full-size PDF pages without any modifications or unsightly wrapping. It's being pitched at anyone who wants to read rich, dense information: textbooks, scientific texts, computer manuals, etc. To make this even easier, it now supports auto-rotation. It will automatically sense whether you're holding the device in portrait mode or landscape mode and rotate the page to match.
What else do you get for your money? Well, it's pretty much the same as the small Kindle in all other respects. Same Whispernet wireless access, samme text-to-speech, same overall design. It does have enough memory for 3500 books, up from 1500 books. But the display is still 16 shades of gray (no color).
What do I think? I think this is one expensive gadget. The small Kindle, at $359, is pushing my willingness to spend. The DX, at $489, is way beyond it. Granted, it's a huge device. And I do think that size would allow me to read many books I'm unwilling to read on my small Kindle. But I'm not going to spend $500 for the privilege. Hopefully, for Amazon's sake, somebody else is.
This entry was tagged. Ebooks Innovation