The Internet is awash with word of a new Kindle on the block, and it comes with the cunning moniker of the Kindle DX.
The Kindle e-reader device from Amazon has been a great success, okay, so you don’t trip over one every day but according to Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, where Kindle options for a book are available it typically accounts for 35% of the sale of that title.
If accurate it’s incredible that a new device aimed at reading newspapers, magazines, books and documents can account for 35% of those titles sales since November 2007.
Well now we have the third Kindle in the series, the Kindle DX, which boasts a screen size that measures 9.7-inches times compared to the 6-inches of the Kindle and Kindle 2.
The reader can natively display PDF files and will also make short work of storing all your favourite newspapers, books and documents with a capacity of up to about 3,500 titles all told.
The larger screen means that there’s more content displayed at any one time, which of course means less page turning which gets a big thumbs up from us, particularly when the Kindle family has never been the most sprightly in refreshing. We’re also happy that the DX comes complete with an accelerometer even if reports of it’s slow adjustment turn out to be accurate.
Whilst a bigger screen and larger memory gets approval from us, we still think that the device is a little lacking in terms of functionality. I mean, it can display 16 different shades of Gray, but when was the last time you saw a picture in a newspaper or a textbook and thought, "Wow, I wish I could see that in 16 shades of Gray".
So, it needs a full colour display, that’s decided. And with that full-colour screen reproducing textbooks, magazines and newspapers in all their multicolour glory why not add video support too? It’s a portable device with a large screen - so why not add video codecs and whatever else is necessary to let people watch movies, or at least clips, too.
With an expensive upfront cost of $489 many people are sure to balk, but it wouldn’t be surprising to me, if in order to proliferate the market with e-readers the sales model was subsidised by ads running at the edges of the page.
So who wants to have first guess at when Flash ads will gradually begin to take over those virtual magazine inches?
2 thoughts on “Kindle DX hits the Internet - Better, not best”
Not even available in the UK yet are they?
There’s been lots of talk recently of those type of devices taking over…especially with the newspaper industry in such a bad way…
You’re correct Ben, the Kindle isn’t available in the UK yet..as for it helping the newspaper industry, i don’t think that’s a very long term view of the situation.
The devices are going to improve over time which will i’m sure bring many of the features that we already have in our phones, laptops, netbooks, UMPCs, and whole host of connected devices…i mean,the minute you can just point your Kindle (or whichever) browser at the Guardian’s website who is going to pay for the monthly e-reader subscription for the service?
Kind of seems a bit of a catch-22 for newspapers and they may well end up back where they are now….