Kindle DX: Amazon’s New Addition To The Kindle Family

Slim: Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines

Carry Your Library: Holds up to 3,500 books, periodicals, and documents

Beautiful Large Display: 9.7″ diagonal e-ink screen reads like real paper; boasts 16 shades of gray for clear text and sharp images

Auto-Rotating Screen: Display auto-rotates from portrait to landscape as you turn the device so you can view full-width maps, graphs, tables, and Web pages

Built-In PDF Reader: Native PDF support allows you to carry and read all of your personal and professional documents on the go

Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle DX, anytime, anywhere; no monthly fees, no annual contracts, and no hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots

Books In Under 60 Seconds: You get free wireless delivery of books in less than 60 seconds; no PC required

Long Battery Life: Read for days without recharging

Read-to-Me: With the text-to-speech feature, Kindle DX can read newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books out loud to you, unless the book’s rights holder made the feature unavailable

Big Selection, Low Prices: Over 275,000 books; New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases are only $9.99, unless marked otherwise

More Than Books: U.S. and international newspapers including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, magazines including The New Yorker and Time, plus popular blogs, all auto-delivered wirelessly

The DX was not an obvious upgrade for me, but two features put me over the edge: the larger screen, and the native PDF reader. I now have the DX in my hands, and can report PROS, CONS, and NEUTRALS: PROS: — the larger screen is a definite plus. I use the larger type size on my Kindle 2 (older eyes), and at this type size I get far more text per page on the DX. This makes the whole reading experience more book-like (and should be a boon to people who buy large-print books. ) — the screen is also sharper and crisper than my Kindle 2 in a side-by-side comparison: the text is darker, and the contrast is much better, making for better visibility overall. — on a side note, the larger screen also makes it possible to read poetry on the kindle, even at large type sizes. On earlier Kindles, the smaller screen cut off lines, so that you would lose the sense of when the poet ended the line. On the DX, you can see the whole line exactly as the poet meant it, with the cut-off in the right spot. — the PDF reader works as advertised, and is extremely convenient. PDF documents appear on the DX exactly as they do on a computer screen. Moreover, you can drag and drop your documents directly to the device using the USB cable (or use the for-a-fee email if you absolutely must. ) The only downside: at least for the documents that I’ve used so far, I cannot adjust the type size as I can with native Kindle documents. — screen rotation also works as advertised: it operates as a mild zoom on both graphics and text and offsets slightly the downside of not being able to adjust the typesize on PDF documents. One nice design touch: the four-way navigation stick introduced on the Kindle 2 is rotation-sensitive, and will move as expected relative to the screen rotation. — more of the device space is devoted to the screen, while the white plastic border around the screen seems to have shrunk, both in general and compared to the proportion of screen to plastic on the Kindle 2. I like this (but see below about the keyboard). — storage: I like the increase in storage space, and don’t mind the lack of an external storage card. I can see some people having trouble with this, but only those folks who either a) must regularly carry around PDF documents totalling more than 3. 5 GB of space or b) must have nearly 3500 books regularly at their fingertips. I fall in neither category. CONS: — price: it’s expensive, as you can tell pretty quickly. If you value the larger size, and the native PDF reader, these features may justify the roughly 30% premium you pay for the DX over the Kindle 2. In truth, the DX SHOULD cost more than the Kindle 2, and a 30% premium isn’t unreasonable. But, for my money, Amazon should drop the price on the Kindle 2 to $300 or so, and charge $400 or a little less for the DX. Still, I bought it, and will keep it at this price. — one-sided navigation buttons: all of the buttons are now on the right side, and none are on the left. I’m a righty, so I shouldn’t complain, but I found myself using both sides on the Kindle 2. Lefties have reason to complain, I think. — One-handed handling: I often read while I walk, with my Kindle in one hand, and something else in my other. Because of the button layout, this will be more difficult on the DX. — metal backing: I miss the tacky rubberized backing on my Kindle 1. When I placed my Kindle 1 on an inclined surface, it stayed in place. Not so my Kindle 2 and now my DX. This is not a complaint specific to the DX, but it’s still there. NEUTRALS : — weight: the DX is heavier, noticeably so. This is only an issue if, like me, you regularly use the kindle with one hand . . . and even so, it’s still doable. — keyboard: the keyboard has 4 rows, and not 5: the top row of numbers from the Kindle 1 and 2 has been merged into the top qwerty row, so that numbers are now only accessible with an alt-key combination. The keys are vertically thinner too, so that the whole keyboard is no more than 1″ tall (compared to over an 1. 5″ on the Kindle 2). At the same time, the keys themselves are a bit easier to press, a bit more protruding than on the Kindle 2. For someone with big fingers (like me), this will be a slightly harder keyboard to use, but only slightly. That’s all I can see. Overall, the pluses outweigh the minuses for me, and I’m satisfied with my purchase. I can now think of using my DX for work documents on a regular basis, because of the PDF reader. The screen size and screen rotation make the overall reading experience more immersive. Overall, the DX feels more like text and less like device and comes closer to the stated goal of the Kindle: for the device to disappear, leaving only the joy of reading.

NEW YORK (AP) — E-book readers are a fun category of gadgets, because their shape is not yet set in stone. While one laptop is much like the other, manufacturers are still experimenting with e-readers, trying to figure out how best to take the book into the digital age.

So how about an e-book reader that actually opens like a book? That seems like a good idea, given that the book in its current form has about 2,000 years of popularity behind it, after supplanting scrolls. But appearances can be deceiving.

The $499 Entourage Edge, which comes out this week, looks like a small laptop when folded. Hold it by the spine like a book, and it opens to reveal two screens. On one side is an ”electronic ink” screen for reading. On the other is a full-color touch screen that can be used not just to buy books, but to surf the Web, play music and write e-mail.

Unfortunately, this is less of review and more of a word of warning: The Edge doesn’t do its job. It has a couple of flaws that are enough to make it a failure. Then it has one huge flaw that is enough to make it a failure with no help from other flaws.

The big flaw is atrocious battery life. The Edge doesn’t go into a proper standby mode when closed, so its battery is drained after about 10 hours of inactivity. The only way to make it last longer is to turn it off completely. But when you turn it back on, it takes a minute and a half to boot up. That’s way too long, considering that you can flip open a paper book and start reading in a few seconds. Other e-readers, such as Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle, last longer on standby and turn on faster.

Entourage Systems Inc., the startup behind the product, says it’s working on getting the Edge to consume less power when closed, and hopes to be able to send a software update out in June.

The other problems with the Edge are that it’s heavy, at about 3 pounds. The Kindle weighs two-thirds of a pound. For $499, you’d expect the Edge to have cellular wireless access for book and newspaper downloads, as the $259 Kindle and the $400 Sony Reader Daily Edition do. Instead, it has only Wi-Fi access.

The flaws aside, the Edge is an interesting device. It’s the most capable e-reader yet, but it’s likely to hold that honor for less than two weeks, until Apple Inc.’s iPad tablet comes out April 3.

The Edge’s color touch screen is powered by Android, Google Inc.’s software for cell phones. It can play music and movies in addition to surfing the Web. You can tap out e-mails or notes on the screen. You can plug in USB ”thumb drives” and SD cards to load files. The Edge comes with its own online book store, but it can also show books from other stores, if they’re in the right format (ePub with Adobe DRM). However, to read books from other stores you have to download them to a computer, then transfer them to the Edge through a USB cable or a memory card.

It’s tough to design a good user interface that stretches over two screens with very different characteristics. Barnes & Noble Inc.’s Nook is a prime example. Like the Edge, it pairs an e-ink screen with a color touch screen, albeit a much smaller one. That’s a confusing setup. It constantly forces users to switch their gaze between the screens to figure out what to do. The Edge does better in this regard, because more functions are manipulated from the large touch screen.

It still feels awkward that you can control the color screen by touching it while you need to pull out a stylus to use the e-ink screen. And some functions send you hunting from screen to screen. For instance, to search for a word in a book, you press an icon on the e-ink side with a stylus, then move over to the color side to tap out the word. If the color screen has turned itself off to conserve power, you won’t know that the word-search window is up until you turn on that screen by pressing a button.

This is an attempt to get around a key limitation of e-ink: Although it supposedly is a more natural display for reading, it is very slow to update from image to image, making typing and navigation awkward.

However, I find a high-quality backlit LCD color screen to be more legible than e-ink, not less. And a device with one responsive screen is much easier to use and lighter than one with two. We’ll see. Maybe the iPad will show people that reading on LCDs isn’t so bad, after all.

Sarah Ruml has already given up on paper books. The Kindle is all she needs.

“They’re better than regular books,” Ruml, 38, said of e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle. “They’re lighter, and if you’re trying to get under your covers to read, you can just use one hand. The page doesn’t have that gutter (the space between the edge of the text and the page binding). You can read faster.”

Also: the bookstore is always open, and what you buy doesn’t stack up in the house. “If I own the paper book because I intend to read it,” she said, “I will instead download it on the Kindle.”

The popularity of the Kindle and of Apple’s new iPad mean this might be the first summer in which many people bring an electronic reading device with them to the park or on vacation instead of packing several actual books.

Book sales have declined in each of the last several years, but the e-book market has exploded. The Association of American Publishers reported earlier this month that e-book sales in 2009 were up 176.6 percent over 2008. The iPad will likely drive the 2010 growth even higher.

But if the rise of the e-book is inevitable, what will it change about the way we read? How will books themselves be different?

“I’ve not seen any significant sign of writers changing the way they write,” said Richard Nash, the former publisher of Soft Skull Press whose thoughts on the future of publishing led Utne Reader to name him one of 50 visionaries changing the world. “What I have seen are enormous changes in how writers connect with readers.

“It’s the Twitter-ing novelist: Neil Gaiman and Colson Whitehead and Margaret Atwood and Susan Orlean. The author is not someone you see on a dais once a year at a university or a bookstore where you get 15 seconds with him.”
A radical change

The e-book also increases the number of authors who can make their work available, by going around big publishers and even bookstores.

For small publishers or self-published authors, e-books have vastly reduced the difficulty of reaching an audience, according to Mark Coker, founder of the self-publishing platform Smashwords. “Up until a few years ago, authors really had no choice,” Coker said. “If they wanted to reach an audience, they had to go through that traditional system.”

No we don’t have an iPad, they don’t hit New Zealand for a few weeks yet. But some of you do. And those of us whose iron-clad policy is to never buy any first-generation Apple (News – Alert) anything would like to thank all you bleeding-edge first adopters, without whom the wonderfully bug-free Apple products we buy wouldn’t be possible.

It’s fast. “Applications literally fly open, and browsing the Web on Safari is way faster than on the iPhone (News – Alert),” he says.

On the not-so-great side, Patterson says, “Good luck reading e-books in direct sunlight. The beauty of the Kindle’s black-and-white e-ink screen is that text stands out quite nicely when you’re reading in the sun. On the iPad, however, the color display looks disappointingly washed out in direct sunlight, problematic for reading e-books poolside.”

Just a thought here: Wonder if it’s possible to switch to black and white display, instead of color? Just because it’s possible to render in color doesn’t mean it’s always best to do so, does it? Woody Allen agrees with us on this, by the way.

Frankly we’re not all that interested in buying an iPad, but this does remove one concern we did have: “The iPad’s virtual QWERTY keypad isn’t nearly as terrible as many had warned,” Patterson reports, adding that “I’ve managed to bang out a few decent-sized emails on the thing.”

However, it might not be the most type-friendly device made. To type one needs to “prop it (awkwardly) in your lap to type,” or “place it flat on a table – not the best solution due to the iPad’s curved back,” or “hold it in one hand and tap with the other, effectively slashing your possible WPM” or buy a stand at $40 and up.

Other points Patterson brings out: “HD videos look amazing. Absolutely gorgeous” – good. “Reflections on the display are pretty distracting” – ugly.

Kindle has truly changed the reading experience of both constant readers and those who just read at times. Various sources tell us of its benefits and the many wonderful things it brings after having them into our own hands. Since this Kindle is now getting popular, it would be a wise move to read some of its reviews especially if you’re still unsure in buying one.

When you are in doubt, it would be better if you spare time to read some of the Kindle Reviews that are available online. These said reviews usually come from those who already own one of these devices or who had the experience of using one of them. These reviews are not all good reviews. Some of them disclosed the downsides of this device.

If you haven’t read some of its reviews, then the next lines will tell you some of them. In one of its reviews, Kindle was described as similar to a Sony Reader when it comes to its weight and size. It has been checked that one of its downsides falls with the E lnk technology which makes the screen to take second to refresh. That sounds irritating to some but it was said that the designers of Kindle have done a great job in limiting the delay. Another review deals on the SD-card slot of Kindle. It was suggested that it is preferable if the SD-card slot was not hidden behind the Kindle’s back cover. On the other hand, its battery was admired for being user-replaceable and user-friendly.

A number of good reviews about this device are noticeable. To mention one, it has the best button layout that was designed. Its home button is said to be the best button because a single click to that will allow you to check the main list page of all your content. You can also use its scroll wheel to choose and sort the list by author, date, or title and show books or periodicals. Aside from that, it will also enable you to have access to Wikipedia so that you are armed with it wherever you go.

More of these Kindle Reviews are available for your access online. By checking those reviews, you will encounter some of its negative sides but digging deeper will make you see the good reasons why you should have one of them. Where To Buy Kindle is probably the next question you’ll have in mind after checking those reviews. The answer lies with Amazon and eBay. They are leading online stores that offer these Kindles for sale.