Kindle DX : More than the 6″ Kindle’s Big Brother

I was one of the first people to buy the original Kindle. I was also among the first to buy the 2nd generation Kindle. And yes, I am among the first to buy the Kindle DX. Obviously, I really love the product!

The Kindle DX is the most expensive in the Kindle family. It is also much larger than the original. The screen size of the DX is the same size as the entire small Kindle and its leather case. That’s the reason it is worth the substantial price tag.

Consider. How would you like to read the “Wall Street Journal” in a paperback book format? I tried by subscribing on the original Kindle. It wasn’t a satisfying experience. Yes, I got to read the Journal, which I love, but what a pain moving from article to article or trying to get the sense of reading a newspaper. The “New York Times” was worse. A newspaper is created to be read in a multi-column format.

The Kindle DX has a feature that makes reading a newspaper feel like…reading a newspaper. If you turn the DX on its side, the display goes from a portrait view to landscape. You can see multiple columns in a newsapaper! You can see (albeit in black-and-white) the picture on the front page.

If you use your Kindle for book reading, you can enlarge the type and not have to click the “next” button every few seconds. If you are a student, the Kindle DX page is the same size as most text books. You can read and study with ease. You can also highlight important sections.

On the minus side, the Kindle DX costs a lot and is larger and heavier than the original. Personally, I don’t mind the extra size and weight. It is still wafer thin and lighter than most hard cover books. If you care, it has increased memory so you can keep up to 3,500 books available. I think I woudl be bankrupt long before I could fill up that much memory. If you use the DX for school or work, the ability to search the entire collection of books and documents in the DX is amazing.

There is one other feature of the Kindle DX that could turn out to be super-helpful: the ability to import and read PDF files. For example, the service manual of my car is several thousand pages long. I have it in PDF form. I can upload it to my Kindle DX (the DX is the only Kindle that can read PDF files) and search for the information I want about my car. That’s cool.

If you are considering your first Kindle and can afford the extra cost, the DX is absolutely the best electronic book reader ever made. For a couple of hundred less, you can get the 2nd generation Kindle which does a great job with books. If you plan to use your Kindle for text books, journals, magazines, or newspapers; the Kindle DX will make you much happier.

After more than two years of Kindle DX ownership, I give this wonderful family of devices five stars!

By Bob Walter

First Review Kindle DX

This is the fist time I have reviewed a product. Though I enjoy reading other people’s reviews, I never felt strongly enough to write my own review. But having my Kindle DX for a little over a week has changed that.

My primary reason for buying the Kindle DX was work. I work in the computer field and need to read a lot of documentation. Often I will print out the documentation so I can use it for reference. This leads to lots of manuals that eventually get outdated and need to be recycled. On the kindle DX I can copy over the documentation, which is in pdf format, and carry all the information I need with me. In fact, I recently had a meeting with a client where I needed to verify the syntax for a SQL statement. I pulled out my kindle and was able to show exactly what the documentation said.

But I am also enjoying the kindle as a repository for personal reading material. I have purchased a number of books from Amazon, of course, but there is a ton of free material on the web. If I didn’t want to purchase any current work, I could spend my days reading Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Twain, …

I recommend the Kindle DX for anyone who like me reads a lot of pdfs or wants to enjoys having immediate access to books. It is a powerful tool and I am enjoying it immensely.

Another thing I wanted to add is that I can access email with my Kindle and check websites. All without having to pay extra. I certainly understand those who cannot afford the Kindle DX or want more features, but for now this is the best that is out there. If you need access to a large # of pdfs and books, this is the device. I don’t think it is heavy, but I didn’t buy the smaller K1 or K2. I choose not to buy them because they were too small.

For all the negative comments I have read, I haven’t heard alot about alternatives. So far, everyone I know who has seen it loves it. I feel fortunate to have it and would recommend you buy one if you can afford it.

6/24 Update

This may never happen to anyone else, but I accidentally tried to buy the same book twice. I need to start taking my memory pills again (I just can’t remember where I put them). Anyway, the Kindle DX nicely told me that I had already downloaded the book and there was no need for me to purchase it again.

By MVG