Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: Amazon, Kindle, DX | Themes: Audio/Video Players
It’s only been a couple of months since Amazon announced the second iteration of its Kindle eReader and yet, here we are with number three.
The company announced the Kindle DX at a press conference in New York’s Pace University this morning and it actually looks pretty decent. Leaving aside the fact that the New York Times, The Boston Globe and the Washington Post are jumping on the bandwagon by offering discounted Kindle DXes to subscribers, we actually quite like the device.
Specswise, rumors were pretty much bang on the mark with the Kindle DX. A 9.7-inch e-ink display weighing in at 10.2 ounces and just 1/3 of an inch thick, so lighter than a paperback and as thin as a magazine. It includes 3G, the promise of books delivered direct to the device in 60 seconds or less, an improved display (with 16 shades of grey), 25 percent longer battery life, capacity for up to 3,500 books, 20 percent faster page turns, Amazon’s controversial “Read to Me” text-to-audio feature and a built in PDF reader.
Textbooks from 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 will be available on the device, making for a pretty extensive library when it comes to educational titles.
According to Amazon, 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.
The Kindle DX comes with a price tag of $489, which is a lot of money for an eReader. That said, the price of textbooks being what they are, we can see a bunch of kids ponying up the cash for the Kindle DX. If they’re going to spend money, they might as well invest in something that will eliminate their back-breaking, heavy backpack.
Pre-order it here.
-
Previous News Article
Beatles Guitars to Launch with... -
Next News Article
Xbox 360 Motion Sensing Tech...
13 photos
Here's the thing. I'ma college student myself. The current eTextbooks you can buy from the same textbook companies listed are time limited. They come as protected PDF's with a limited lifespan you can view on your desktop PC. Although they are slightly less expensive (usually $25 bucks cheaper than their paper counterparts) they have no resale value. I can't imagine putting down ~500 bucks for a kindle, you'd never break even. When you buy a used textbook off Amazon, it ends up being roughly the same price as the electronic version anyway so the savings are negated right off the bat. Then at the end of the semester you can turn around and sell it and get 80%-90% of your money back (due to seller fees). You are immeadiately at a lost if you bought electronic since you receive no money back. Each paper textbook ends up costing you maybe 20 bucks a semester using the buy used and sell used method on Amazon. You simply can't recoup that after sinking money into a Kindle and paying for expensive ebooks you can't resell. I don't know that *any* student routinely carries all their books at once so they weight savings doesn't seem like a big deal. Plus you can't highlight or note-take on the Kindle like you can in the margins of a paper book. Unless the schools (or parents) want to subsidize these I can't see a student with a part time job and big tuition loans forking over cash for these.
I'm glad I waited a bit. I'm buying this.
Terrible idea many textbooks. My library of science text books requires 1) the information to be physically present for not taking and comparative purposes, 2) color 3) high resolution photography for books like pathology and histology (2 examples).
Maybe this can hook it up for philosophy majors...
As a Med Student, I can find some good use for this. I've waited a long time for a practical tablet PC, but that seems to be a forgotten market nowadays with all the netbooks around.
If this thing can read any PDF's, then I can put tons of lecture notes in it instead of printing the documents we're provided. That pricetag is somewhat scary though!
It's bigger than a netbook, costs more and doesn't do half as much.
It would have been most useful if the article also stated the resolution.
too expensive, why not $200. also the ebooks are really expensive when you think about it...
If I were starting college today then I would buy the Kindle. Even with the valid points made by cdwilliams1 regarding the used book market, there are still situations where that approach won't work. Examples are:
1) a new edition of the book comes out when you start the class series, which means you can't buy a used book
2) a new edition of the book comes out the semester after you complete the class, which means that you can't sell your used book
Even with the used book route, I typically spent $150 per quarter back in 2000. I have no idea what textbooks cost these days, but that would be $450/yr * 4 years = $1800. You might not recoup all of that expense going the Kindle route -- you almost certainly wouldn't -- but you'd have the added convenience of not having to carry those books around and you'd have an e-book reader that you could also use to download novels.
For those of you who aren't reading the article:
1) It does include a PDF reader
2) You can add notes
3) It displays 16 shades of gray and the images shown on the amazon site are very sharp. Very few students actually need color pictures in their books.
DX resolution is 1200x824
Still rather have a plastic logic.
Oh well.
---------------------------------
@cdwilliams1
I carry all my books. I commute 25 miles with my wife into town when she works, so I need everything on me. No lockers on this sprawling campus anymore, and she has the car - so I get a broken back.
When talking costs, let us not forget the value of conservation - eBooks versus paper have a value that is not directly computable. In my area, buyback is not 80% but more like 20%, so a new eBook with online software access is the same cost as the used book that doesn't have the software. The buyback value is less than the cost of online book access, so I loose with used. Finally, let us not forget the cost savings you have on your personal books (pleasure reading - you all still do that, right?) and the convenience of having your entire library on you to read at a moments notice (backup up, of course).
-----------------------------------------------
However, there is one big drawback that ReciprocalInhibition hinted at - often times I need to have 2 or 3 books laid out in front of me. I cannot do this easily with an eReader, so I think I would need a couple at least.
If they would come up with a pen that would let you highlight text, then I would buy one.
Alright. Just as useless as the regular Kindle only larger and much more expensive.
While I can see this being useful for textbooks, what really needs to happen is that you can buy a textbook and get the ebook for an additional $5 or so.
Also, when I was in college, we had new editions of all of our texts every year or 2, so for the majority of our books buying used was not an option. I envy the guy who said he spent $450/year. My books were closer to $800-1000/semester.