Hasta La Gadget!

I was an early believer in Kindle, but I thought it would evolve more quickly than this. Kindle DX is a step forward—more than the Kindle 2—but there’s still work to be done.

The larger screen isn’t just cosmetic. It helps Amazon add functionality without having to justify the screen’s inherent slowness. Today, we heard this a lot: “No panning, no zooming, no scrolling.” The E-Ink screen isn’t fast enough to support those actions smoothly, but now, at 9.7″, it doesn’t necessarily need to.

This opens the door for the long overdue PDF support, which is now native—teachers and colleagues can distribute reports the way they best know how, and it will look good on an easy-to read screen. Not only that, but they can distribute ridiculously unoptimized PDFs, because the Kindle now has 3.3GB of storage (though no more SD slot). Amazon’s Jeff Bezos says you can store 1,500 books, but the way I see it, medical professionals and engineers will store a few hundred PDFs. The $489 price is easy to justify in certain specialized fields. (It’s also going to allow easier access to pirated books, which may not be good for the book-publishing industry, but is certainly good for Kindle sales.)

The relationship with newspaper publishers is shaky at best. I can’t see how an industry that’s hemorrhaging money can subsidize a newfangled tech product in order to lure people (who exactly?) back to subscribing for something they are forced to publish for free online anyway. The early alliance is even more tenuous when you realize that special pricing is only offered to would-be subscribers outside of the reach of home delivery. (At least, it is for now.)

And as for maintaining the look and feel of an ink-stained broadsheet—or even a tabloid—a 9.7″ screen doesn’t do much to get closer to that than the current 6″ screen.

The rest of Bezos’ big bullet points—fast 3G network, 275,000 books and counting, $10 or less for bestsellers, no monthy fees—were all there more or less in the beginning, and are things that in no way distinguish the Kindle DX from the Kindle that came out in 2007.

So what does Amazon still need to work on?

An Alliance with Text Book Publishers UPDATED Forget NYT Bestsellers. The real way to move Kindles is to sell them to every college kid with the software equivalent of 200 backbreaking pounds of textbook. Bezos teased this in his speech, even named names but he didn’t do it with enough conviction to convince me a deal was in the works anywhere close to being hammered out. Believe me, when the Prentice Halls and Houghton Mifflins of the world come around to offering reasonably priced Kindle editions of their high school and university top sellers, you’re gonna hear about it.

iPhone App Updates The iPhone Kindle app was a good start, but we haven’t heard much about it since the beginning. It lacked the ability to shop, it had no search or dictionary. Many people still feel that the ebook trend will only take off when the smartphones (all of ’em)—plus netbooks and tablets—get with the Amazon book retail juggernaut and make sweet sweet DRM-infected love. Only then will demand for specialized easy-on-the-eyes devices like Kindle be super obvious to Ma and Pa.

Keep Improving the Screen, and Investigate LCD The New York Times started printing its front page in color in like 1997 or 1998, if I’m not mistaken. That’s over a decade of color for even the stodgiest of print pubs. (USA Today launched with color a decade before.) Pushing the E-Ink stuff is fine, but if you’re going to charge uberdollars, let’s see some color E-Ink. Not like they have larger customers than Amazon lined up. And while we’re on the subject, how about checking in with Mary Lou Jepsen and the ultralowpowered, super awesome LCD screens she says she’s working on? Blam wants touchscreens and backlighting, but that can backfire. I’d settle for something that’s fast enough to allow for true “leafing” through a book.

Upgrade Old Kindles, Or Make New Ones Upgradeable Simply put, don’t screw your loyal constituents. That’s something Steve Jobs is known to do from time to time, but even Apple knows that you have to give a little something something to the people who paid top dollar for last year’s product. PDF support would be a nice one, if only for that whole “No panning, no zooming, no scrolling” limitation. Seems the feature in the new device is a flaw in the old.

At the end, I have to applaud Amazon’s continued investment and exploration of ebook readers, and if I sound impatient, it’s only because I have the compressed hindsight of other product evolutions (MP3 players, movie discs, etc.) to compare this with. Two years isn’t a long time to revolutionize an entire industry, and this will take much longer than that, but we want to make sure that progress is being made, and that Bezos isn’t squandering Amazon’s natural advantage in this field. [Kindle DX on Gizmodo]

Just as with the Kindle 2, Amazon posted the Kindle DX product page while the launch event was underway. Specs-wise, there’s not much here we didn’t know: the big changes are a larger 9.7-inch screen that rotates to landscape display, a PDF reader, and more storage space at 3.3GB. The big news is actually the flat $489 price tag, which seems on the high-side of realistic to us — although the subsidy-pricing rumors weren’t totally inaccurate, as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe will offer subsidized on-contract Kindles to customers who can’t get at-home delivery when the DX ships this summer. (Yes, that’s a pretty lame restriction.) Amazon’s also announcing a wide range of textbook publishing partnerships, with tomes from Addison-Wesley, Wiley Higher Education, Longman & Prentice Hall and many others available — and what’s more, Arizona State, Case Western Reserve, Princeton, Reed, and Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia have all signed on to distribute “hundreds” of Kindle DXs to students this fall. We’re hunting for more info, stay tuned.

Read – Kindle DX product page
Read – Kindle DX PR

[Thanks, Jason G]

Filed under: Handhelds

Amazon Kindle DX announced: $489, ships this summer originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 May 2009 10:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon’s new Kindle DX boasts a newspaper-friendly screen that’s 2.5x bigger than the standard Kindle, but it’s also got a few tricks of its own (new features in bold):

• 9.7-inch E-Ink screen (1200 x 824 with 16 shades of grey)
• 1/3 of an inch thick (10.4″ x 7.2″ x 0.38″)
• 4GB Storage for 3,500 books (a bump from 1,500)
• Unspecified but “long” battery life
• Native PDF support through built-in reader
• Automatic landscape/portrait text rotation
• Line length adjustments (determine the width of text on the screen)
• Navigation buttons moved to right side of screen only
• EVDO (of course) for 60-second book transfers

Available this summer, there’s no denying it—the Kindle DX looks fantastic, especially with that surprise landscape/portrait rotational sensitivity we find useful in so many smartphones. But $500? Really? [Amazon]

Introducing Kindle DX-Amazon’s Large Screen Addition to the Kindle Family of Wireless Reading Devices

Large Kindle DX Display and New Features Provide Enhanced Experience for Reading a Wide Range of Professional and Personal Documents

The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post to Launch Trials Offering Kindle DX to Subscribers Who Live in Areas Where Home Delivery is Not Available

Leading Textbook Publishers to Offer Textbooks in Kindle Store

Five Universities to Launch Trials with Students Using Kindle DX in Fall 2009

SEATTLE—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today introduced Amazon Kindle DX, the new purpose-built reading device that offers Kindle’s revolutionary wireless delivery and massive selection of content with a large 9.7-inch electronic paper display, built-in PDF reader, auto-rotate capability, and storage for up to 3,500 books. More than 275,000 books are now available in the Kindle Store, including 107 of 112 current New York Times Best Sellers. New York Times Bestsellers and New Releases are $9.99 unless marked otherwise. Top U.S. and international magazines and newspapers plus more than 1,500 blogs are also available. Kindle DX is available for pre-order starting today for $489 at http://amazon.com/kindleDX and will ship this summer.

“Personal and professional documents look so good on the big Kindle DX display that you’ll find yourself changing ink-toner cartridges less often,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “Cookbooks, computer books, and textbooks – anything highly formatted – also shine on the Kindle DX. Carry all your documents and your whole library in one slender package.”

New Large Display

Kindle DX’s display has 2.5 times the surface area of Kindle’s 6-inch display. The larger electronic paper display with 16 shades of gray has more area for graphic-rich content such as professional and personal documents, newspapers and magazines, and textbooks. Kindle reads like printed words on paper because the screen works using real ink and doesn’t use a backlight, eliminating the eyestrain and glare associated with other electronic displays.

The New York Times Company and Washington Post Company are launching pilots with Kindle DX this summer. The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post will offer the Kindle DX at a reduced price to readers who live in areas where home-delivery is not available and who sign up for a long-term subscription to the Kindle edition of the newspapers.

“At The New York Times Company we are always seeking new ways for our millions of readers to have full and continuing access to our high-quality news and information,” said Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., chairman, The New York Times Company and publisher, The New York Times. “The wireless delivery and new value-added features of the Kindle DX will provide our large, loyal audience, no matter where they live, with an exciting new way to interact with The New York Times and The Boston Globe. Additionally, by offering a subscription through the Kindle DX to readers who live outside of our delivery areas, we will extend our reach to our loyal readers who will be able to more readily enjoy their favorite newspapers. Meanwhile, we are continuing to work with Amazon to make The New York Times and The Boston Globe experiences on Kindle better than ever.”

Kindle DX’s large display offers an enhanced reading experience with another category of graphic-rich content-textbooks. With complex images, tables, charts, graphs, and equations, textbooks look best on a large display. Leading textbook publishers Cengage Learning, Pearson, and Wiley, together representing more than 60 percent of the U.S. higher education textbook market, will begin offering textbooks through the Kindle Store beginning this summer. Textbooks under the following brands will be available: Addison-Wesley, Allyn & Bacon, Benjamin Cummings, Longman & Prentice Hall (Pearson); Wadsworth, Brooks/Cole, Course Technology, Delmar, Heinle, Schirmer, South-Western (Cengage); and Wiley Higher Education.

Arizona State University, Case Western Reserve University, Princeton University, Reed College, and Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia will launch trial programs to make Kindle DX devices available to students this fall. The schools will distribute hundreds of Kindle DX devices to students spread across a broad range of academic disciplines. In addition to reading on a considerably larger screen, students will be able to take advantage of popular Kindle features such as the ability to take notes and highlight, search across their library, look up words in a built-in dictionary, and carry all of their books in a lightweight device.

“The Kindle DX holds enormous potential to influence the way students learn,” said Barbara R. Snyder, president of Case Western Reserve University. “We look forward to seeing how the device affects the participation of both students and faculty in the educational experience.”

New Built-In PDF Reader

Kindle DX features a built-in PDF reader using Adobe Reader Mobile technology for reading professional and personal documents. Like other types of documents on Kindle, customers simply email their PDF format documents to their Kindle email address or move them over using a USB connection. With a larger display and built-in PDF reader, Kindle DX customers can read professional and personal documents with more complex layouts without scrolling, panning, or zooming, and without re-flowing, which destroys the original structure of the document. Everything from annual reports with graphs to flight manuals with maps to musical scores can be viewed on a single, crisp screen with Kindle DX.

New Auto-Rotation

Kindle DX’s display content auto-rotates so users can read in portrait or landscape mode, or flip the device to read with either hand. Simply turn Kindle DX and immediately see full-width landscape views of maps, graphs, tables, images, and Web pages.

New 3.3 GB Memory Holds Up To 3,500 Books

With 3.3 GB of available memory, Kindle DX can hold up to 3,500 books, compared with 1,500 with Kindle. And because Amazon automatically backs up a copy of every Kindle book purchased, customers can wirelessly re-download titles from their library at any time.

Incredibly Thin

Kindle DX is just over a third of an inch thin, which is thinner than most magazines.

3G Wireless, No PC, No Hunting for Wi-Fi Hot Spots

Just like Kindle, Kindle DX customers automatically take advantage of Amazon Whispernet to wirelessly shop the Kindle Store, download or receive new content in less than 60 seconds, and read from their library-all without a PC, Wi-Fi hot spot, or syncing. Amazon still pays for the wireless connectivity on Kindle DX so books can be downloaded in less than 60 seconds-with no monthly fees, data plans, or service contracts.

Syncs With Kindle for iPhone and other Kindle Compatible Devices

Just like Kindle, Kindle DX uses Amazon Whispersync technology to automatically sync content across Kindle, Kindle DX, Kindle for iPhone, and other devices in the future. With Whispersync, customers can easily move from device to device and never lose their place in their reading.

Massive Selection of Books-Plus Newspapers, Magazines, and Blogs

The Kindle Store currently offers more than 275,000 books, including popular books like New York Times Bestsellers, New Releases, and fiction and nonfiction released in the past several years. Dozens of newspapers and magazines are also available for subscription or single-edition purchase. BusinessWeek and The New England Journal of Medicine are available in the Kindle Store starting today, and The Economist will be available soon. Subscriptions are auto-delivered wirelessly to Kindle overnight so that the latest edition is waiting for customers when they wake up. Over 1,500 blogs are available on Kindle and updated and downloaded wirelessly throughout the day.

Kindle DX includes all the other features Kindle customers enjoy every day, including:

Wirelessly send, receive, and read personal documents in a variety of formats such as Microsoft Word and PDF
Look up words instantly using the built-in 250,000 word New Oxford American Dictionary
Choose from six text sizes
Add bookmarks, notes, and highlights
Text-to-speech technology that converts words on a page to spoken word
Search Web, Wikipedia.org, Kindle Store, and your library of purchased content
No setup required-Kindle comes ready to use-no software to load or set up

Amazon Kindle is sold through Amazon Digital Services, Inc.

Just ahead of the reported release of Amazon’s latest Kindle, the company looks to be leaking like a sieve. We reportedly now have pictures, specs, a name, and information on some of the content plans for the device which is said to be the company’s attempt to help save the dying newspaper industry.

The new Amazon Kindle DX reportedly features a 9.7-inch display, a built-in PDF reader, and the ability to add notes and highlights for textbooks. The company has also reportedly already struck a deal with The New York Times, which will make the daily paper available for $9.95 a month.

According to Engadget, a number of school, including Pace, Princeton, Reed, Arizona State, and Darden School at the University of Virginia have signed up for trials with the device.