Amazon Kindle DX January 7, 2010
Posted by James Webster in : gadgets , trackbackNow that the Amazon Kindle DX (the 9″ version of the Kindle originally targeted at students, newspaper readers) is now available in an international edition, I have had cause to think again about purchasing an e-reader.
I blogged a little about e-readers in the past but I have yet to jump into the market myself.
With the Kindle DX shortly being shipped to Australia however, I may put my money where my mouth is.
Whilst I like the smaller e-readers that now appear to be abundantly available the sort of e-reading I want to do lends itself to a larger screen. I have a number of books downloaded via O’Reilly Safari monthly download tokens; these are generally technical/programming books and are available in PDF format (although I have recently noticed Safari now lets you download certain whole books in PDF, epub or Kindle’s Mobipocket format; but O’Reilly published titles only at the moment). Kaplan Professional, with whom I am studying a Masters of Applied Finance, has also started making their study notes available in PDF (which saves me from scanning and OCR’ing them myself via my ScanSnap).
PDF documents don’t reflow so attempting to view any of this content on a smaller screen (including the regular Kindle which recently gained PDF format support) would be an exercise in futility. Hence my desire for a larger screen e-reader.
The number of large format e-readers available is still very small. This list on Wikipedia shows only the Amazon Kindle DX and a couple of models from iRex. I’ve followed the evolution of the iRex products and they have had some quality-control issues from my time lurking on the iRex forum.
The elephant in the room is the mythical Apple tablet. Rumour is hot that by the end of this month Apple will have revealed its 10″ tablet, the ‘iSlate’, which will revolutionize the consumption of media. Or something like that. Despite being an Apple fan I will remain skeptical that this device will be suitable as an e-reader unless it incorporates some sort of dual e-ink/LCD display technology… my eyes don’t want to read lengthy text on a bright backlit LCD screen.
Various other consortiums of publishers have been proposing to build their own e-readers which may or may not be open, large format or otherwise functional. So the Amazon Kindle DX just might be where I jump into the e-reader world.
However, I have my reservations, some of which are echoed in Sean Carmody’s excellent post about the Kindle in Australia on his Stubborn Mule blog:
- I believe that Amazon has not yet established in Australia a servicing capability for Kindles that breakdown. Any required repairs either in or out of warranty will require it to be shipped back to the US.
Australia’s antiquated publishing laws surrounding parallel imports mean that the content available in to the Australian region is significantly smaller than that available overseas. However I still have a bank card with a UK billing address and it appears that this is sufficient to purchase books available in the UK region… although this maybe more faffing about than I can put up with. - What is AT&T Global Wireless coverage like in Australia? Which local mobile network operator do they piggyback on? (hang on, it looks like there is a coverage map)
- The e-book format war: Although the Kindle DX has excellent PDF rendering, it does not support the epub standard, preferring its own Mobipocket format. It would seem unlikely that Amazon would ever add epub support to the Kindle range.
- Are local news outlets going to be publishing via the Kindle store, or in Kindle format? (eg. Crikey, the AFR, etc). According Stubborn Mule, they may have been turned off by the high percentage of sales revenue that Amazon demands from publisher’s pushing content to the Kindle platform. At the very least I can use a desktop application to scrape these sites for content, convert and sync; perhaps Calibre?
- Kindle purchases are made in USD. Although the AUD is quite strong at the moment, most Australian credit card companies tend to charge fees plus an FX spread you could drive a truck through on foreign currency transactions. It would be great if Amazon opens online Kindle stores ‘around the world’ that bill in local currency especially since they are restricting the available titles to what they have rights to sell in digital format in any region.
Given CES is about to kick-off and Apple’s rumoured event to launch the tablet is at the end of the month I think I will cool my heels for the moment, and hopefully I will have a bit more clarity at the beginning of February about my e-reader purchase decision!
Comments»
So, did you get the DX? If so, your thoughts? Did it make reading your documents easier for you?
Did you ever find out if local media outlets have taken to the Kindle?
I’ve had mine for over six months, but local Aussie publications don’t seem to have jumped on board at anywhere near the rate US publications have…
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