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Amazon
As most of my readers know I’m a big fan of the Amazon Kindle and I’ve written about it here several times. When the Kindle DX was announced I wrote a report on it based on the information I had access to at the time. Today I want to tell you a bit more about it based on my hands on experience, let's face it, there is no substitute for actually getting your hands on and using a device. I received my Kindle DX the first day they were available and I’ve taken some time playing with it and using it to give you my insights into it. This article will be less about specs and features (which I covered previously in this article) and more about the practical and day-to-day use of the Kindle DX.
Size and Weight
First off and the most obvious is the size, the Kindle DX is much bigger than the Kindle 2. The DX screen is about 2.5 times the size of the Kindle 2 screen. Unfortunately along with the bigger screen and larger size comes weight. The Kindle 2 weighs 10.2 ounces and the Kindle DX weighs 18.9 ounces. I was quite surprised at how heavy the Kindle DX felt as compared with my Kindle 2. While I happen to be traveling right now with the Kindle DX, in the future my Kindle 2 will be my traveling companion. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the bigger screen but you have to come up with a different strategy for holding it comfortably. My already overcrowded briefcase takes a hit on space and weight with the DX as well. The bigger screen is great for viewing graphics if the graphics were designed to be enlarged. In my brief unscientific study, the graphics of the books that are noted in the Kindle store as optimized for the Kindle DX are far superior to the ones that aren’t. Hopefully, more books that use graphics will be converted to the better quality graphics for the DX.
Using the second largest font on both my Kindle 2 and my DX it appears that I can get more than twice as much text displayed on one DX screen. Also, it appears that the second largest font on the DX is a little bit bigger than the one on the Kindle 2. At first I thought turning pages was faster on the DX, but apparently it just feels that way because when I did an unscientific side by side comparison the advantage the DX had was so miniscule as to be insignificant.
Cover
A really nice touch that is included with the Amazon branded Kindle cover are magnetic inserts in the front and back covers that “grab” the device and keep the cover closed against it. This gives the DX more protection than the similar but non-magnetic Kindle 2 cover. It’s a small thing but a very nice touch that I think a lot of users will appreciate. I wonder if they will update the Kindle 2 cover with the magnets? The usual warnings apply, keep credit cards away from your Kindle cover!
Jay B. Siegel
Native PDF
This could be a huge feature for many users. With the Kindle 2 a PDF needs to be converted by Amazon and then either sent wirelessly by Amazon (for a fee) or emailed back to you for manually copying over to the Kindle from your computer. That's the only way to use a PDF on a Kindle 2. Unfortunately, often the conversion was not the best and the document was hard to read. Many times charts were virtually unreadable. This conversion is now eliminated with the DX. I was able to move PDF files from my computer to my DX and they all opened perfectly. Also, due to the much larger screen everything looked good and there was no zooming necessary. This is a huge improvement over the original Kindle and the Kindle 2 and for many, may be reason enough to purchase a DX.
Buttons
The button layout of the DX is significantly different from the Kindle 2. Gone are the "next page" and "previous page" buttons on the left side of the device. The Kindle DX has no buttons on the left side at all. The "previous page" button has a new home on the right side of the DX just above the "next page" button. Other than that, the button layout on the right side is the same.
The button layout at the bottom of the DX has changed significantly. Instead of being round, the buttons are oval in shape. The top row of numerical buttons is gone, numbers now share real estate with the top row of letters. To type a number will require a press of the alt button followed by the letter/number button. This arrangement is clearly a space saving measure. The new keyboard seems squished in a bit but works just fine.
Auto Rotation
When you turn the DX from a portrait position to a landscape position the text turns with it. This can be a handy feature for reading some types of materials and viewing graphics. In practice, the auto rotation is too sensitive for me and I found it rotating when I didn’t want it to. It is an easy setting from the type size menu to lock the DX in whatever orientation suits you.
Synchronization
It is a thing of beauty to use Whispersync. It is child’s play to get to the last page read across all of your Kindle devices and it works beautifully. Right now I have an Apple iPod touch, Kindle 2 and Kindle DX and I can read the same book on all of them. As long as I have access to the Internet the devices will always know what the furthest page read was, I love this feature, without it using multiple devices to read the same material would be very difficult and inconvenient.
Jay B. Siegel
There is one caveat regarding synchronization: You cannot receive blogs, magazines, or newspaper subscriptions from Amazon on more than one Kindle device (you can’t receive them at all on the iPhone or iPod touch). What this means is you will need to plan ahead. Say you’re receiving the New York Times on your DX but you’re planning a trip and would rather take your Kindle 2. You’ll need to go to your Kindle account on Amazon and change the delivery of the NY Times to your Kindle 2. These changes don’t take effect immediately so try to do it the night before. This is certainly not the most convenient thing in the world but I’ve heard this is not an Amazon thing, it’s a DRM (Digital Rights Management) thing required by the copyright holders. It seems to me that one subscription should suffice for a family of Kindles but they don’t see it that way. I guess if they could, they’d make all the members of your family buy their own newspaper rather than allowing you to pass it around. Pretty silly, no?
Easter Egg
Did I mention you could use the search bar to do simple mathematical calculations? Well you can, just type in the numbers and operators, hit the return key and voila, there is your answer.
Conclusions
I really like Kindles. As an avid and voracious reader it has revolutionized the way I read. I believe the devices are great but they are too expensive. The current demographic of Kindle owners is older and wealthier than the average population. I believe they are selling well for Amazon but I truly believe that the acceptance would be much wider if the prices could be reduced significantly. For the person who reads a ton of books there probably can be a cost justification of the device over time, for the more casual reader, not so much.
The Kindle holds a huge amount of promise for textbook users, this is unrealized as of yet, but was talked about at some length (and covered by me) during the Kindle DX announcement.Time will tell if the textbook publishers will take advantage of this wonderful platform and save the backs of students that have to lug many pounds of books from class to class.
What I really like about the Kindle DX is less page turning, better graphics, PDF’s that work seamlessly and increased memory to keep more materials on the device. I guess I really enjoy having a big, sharp screen to read from too.
Right now I have a Kindle for all occasions and I’m quite happy that way. I’ve gotten used to the increased weight of the DX, the Kindle 2 feels light and tiny in my hands now. My strategy will be to use the DX at home and take the Kindle 2 with me when I travel. The iPod touch usually travels with me and is handy to just throw in my pocket to read a few pages casually.
Should you buy a DX? If you read PDF’s or read books with lots of graphics it’s a no-brainer over the Kindle 2. If you need to have a lot of materials at your fingertips it is also excellent due to its greater memory capacity. If none of these apply, the Kindle 2 might be a better way to go. Either way you can’t go wrong and if it's your first Kindle, reading will never be the same for you again.
Have any questions on the specifics of either device? Feel free to contact me on Twitter, email (my email address is in my bio) or leave your question here in the comments. Either way, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
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