Amazon Kindle DX to feature 9.7-inch display? Update: Pictures!
By Nilay Patel 
posted May 4th 2009 10:11PM
posted May 4th 2009 10:11PM
Update: Looks like Mssr. BC decided to throw down -- check out some pics in the gallery!
Update 2: Some more details care of the Wall Street Journal. Chief information officer for Cleveland-based Case Western Reserve University -- the college whose president will be taking the stage with Jeff Bezos -- Lev Gonick said select students are being issued the new, larger screen Kindles (doesn't specify DX) in the fall semester with pre-installed textbooks for chemistry, computer science and a freshman seminar. Five other universities including Pace, Princeton, Reed, Arizona State, and Darden School at the University of Virginia are also said to be signed up for the trial. As for the new details on the device itself, the report states it's got a more functional web browser, with no word on how that'll jibe with Whispernet.
Here's to hoping all the major textbook publishers support it.
I would buy one of these in a heartbeat if I thought my textbooks would be on it.
@wii60 seriously, if it did, would be life saver, and maybe i wouldn't have to go to a chiroprachter due to sadistic evil school. in all seriousness, i would buy in a heart beat if this thing supported my text books and cost 400. i thought kindles were kind of over priced, but with the price of books and the weight issue there, i will switch so quickly. amazon better run this over correctly, if they don't.... well, students that i know that i've talked about this with are excited for the idea, just don't let us down!
same here- i dont care about the hardware- just the digital content. and please- dont make some content only for this size format. please.
So agree. I'm in college right now and if the major publishers jumped on board then it would be amazing.
still small for me. i think the ideal is 8.5x11
i thought the original 6 inch is a joke. cant believe how well it did in the market though.
Same deal here. Get all the major textbook publishers on-board and then the $400 is no longer for a electronic book gimmick but as part of an education expense that disappears among $18,000 in tuition per semester.
If they announce excellent educational resources at the keynote then I'm placing my pre-order right then and there for next school year. Otherwise, I couldn't care less.
Who would want to use this for a textbook? LOL. There is no color for those color coded diagrams. No ability to highlight or markup. This will be as proprietary as the regular kindle. You'll have to pay to transfer any data on it. Also rest assured that it will be expensive.
EDIT: I missed the part about highlights and notes but the lack of color seriously hurts it. Whether it will be bar graphs and pie charts or diagrams for anatomy classes. A tablet (whether it is made by Apple or anyone else) is a far better solution for a full day of classes.
It also doesn't solve the situation of the Kindle being more locked down than an iPod and too expensive.
Textbooks?
What kind of textbooks do you use that are 9.7 inch diagonal?
Most textbooks are 8.5 x 11, at minimum, and many texts are even larger.
This won't work for textbooks and Amazon won't support PDF's anyway.
If they at least made it 8.5 x 11 and included PDF support, I might have considered it, even without color and annotating capabilities, but without any of those features, this is just another Amazon junk for me.
@str1f3
"No ability to highlight or markup. This will be as proprietary as the regular kindle. You'll have to pay to transfer any data on it."
- You already can highlight and add notes to a Kindle book.
- Kindle reads AZW, MOBI, PRC, DOC, TXT, RTF, HTM, and PDF. This ads a new, direct PDF reader. What is so propriety about that?
- There are multiple ways to get your books onto your Kindle. Only one has a 15-cent/meg fee for the convenience of automatic conversion and wireless transfer to your device. The rest of the methods are free.
Learn before you speak.
For anyone wanting a kindle to buy textbooks, do you not sell your textbooks when you're done? Or buy used? The cost of this thing goes up a lot when you consider that.
I own the K2, and that's the thing I can't get over. I have no desire to hoard a thousand books. I can never give them away or sell them or anything. I listen to my Amazon mp3's over and over, but how many books do you want to re-experience again?
that made me giggle teeheehee.
Mr. blurry cam sounds like a character on a kids show
What kind of "kid shows" are you watching?
Your 'tee-hee' might well fade sometime in the not-too-distant future, since after reading this absolutely inane reference to 'old friend, Mr. Blurrycam' or similar ad nausium, it gets tedious indeed. It's absolutely like a child's book and I have no idea why they continually use such ludicrous and (in my humble opinion) annoying language. I sometimes wonder about these people... and not in a positive way at all (/rant off). However, they certainly do provide welcome information about upcoming product and direction.
"It's still an elusive target for our old friend Mr. Blurrycam, but"
I can't read what Engadget crossed out with a line. Anyone know what was edited out?
Make it $149, and I might bite.
An eInk screen this size alone probably costs more than $149.
then they'll do what the game companies do, lose on the hardware, make on the software
Game console makers collect significant royalties on each game. Which is why they tend to cost more than PC games. This model wouldn't work out so well when you're trying to offer a cost advantage over most ebook sellers, despite the fact that publishers expect just as much. Plus there is no guarantee that people will buy all of their books from you...unless you pissed off your customer base by locking out nonDRM formats.
I really don't think the Kindle is that overpriced for what they give you like the data plan that comes with it and is completely paid for once the device is purchased. I just don't think such things are necessary on a reader. There should at least be a cheaper Kindle that doesn't include the data stuff.
well Amazon is definitely making significant sales considering they released Kindle software for non e-reader mobile platforms suggesting their fine just making money of the book sales
I never said they weren't making a profit on the books. The issue is whether it's really enough to absorb the substantial loss they would need to take by pricing the Kindle so low. Even console makers don't make the heavy profits until a few years in, when the cost of the hardware drops to the point where their no longer taking a significant loss.
Here's to hoping that Amazon has a software update for the Kindle that enables the PDF reader.
My sentiments exactly... I need built-in, non-converted PDF support for my Kindle 1.
Price this model well, though, and I'll think about it. Make it a touchscreen UI and I'm sold.
I can not wait until they come out with larger flexible e-ink displays to replace the morning newspaper.
599?
I'm going to guess $499.95. I don't think they want to break the $500 marker for psychological reasons.
149? You'll be lucky if Amazon charges less than 400. You know, cuz that screen adds like 200 dollars extra and the PDF format requires 'hardware not present on previous Kindles, a.k.a. 'The Sup3r PDF skalar 3.79 chip' (known to the rest of the world as a firmware update.
That PDF reader would be killer for me; I scan all of my textbooks into PDF format, so I would definitely get one if I could read those on it.
$199 w/ a 24 month $15/month subscription contract? plz?
Why you'd want to pay $560 for the device over two years, and then have to shell out $15/mo after that, instead of just, say, $499 with no additional fees (save for books of course) is beyond me.
The best thing about the Kindle is the free access to the internet/Wikipedia/book samples. Amazon knows this, and they know that there's no way that they'll be able to convince people to sign up for a monthly contract commitment for a *book.* They'll keep it subscription-free.
@mog:
I think he means _without_ paying for books.
You know, like Safari Books Online, which I love and have used for years. It's the Netflix of tech books. 5 books at any given time per month for $9.95.
If Amazon could do something like that with the Kindle while absorbing the price in a contract I'd probably bite.
The question in my mind is whether it'll use a glass substrate, like current eInk displays, or a plastic one. If the former, I would seriously worry about fracturing [especially] at this size.
Plastic Logic's reader will be the first one free from fracturing.
Actually PVI, the actual manufacturer of most current eInk displays, is supposedly releasing their own plastic version this year. Long before the PL reader hits the market.
Hmmm... still too specific of a gadget.
Eventually there'll be something like this that's also a more generalized gadget that does web and video and so on.
Until then, it will be a niche gadget. Like a Blockbuster set top box.
You CAN'T DO VIDEO ON E-INK!
How many times do people need to be told this? The Kindle and other e-readers exist to offer the e-ink display as an alternative to burning your eyes out on a backlit LCD screen. E-ink looks like a printed page, not like an electronic display. That's why it's great for reading.
If you want a multi-purpose gadget that does "web and video and so on" then you want a netbook, iPhone, Blackberry or a tablet PC... Not an e-reader. All of those other gadgets are available right now-- Go get one and stop asking for the e-reader to be capable of displaying shows from Hulu.
As for web browsing, you can already do that on the Kindle 2. It's not going to handle flash, or anything advanced, but it works for reading blogs and checking wikipedia.
If you're not in the market for a device that is aimed at READING BOOKS then don't complain that they don't have enough features. Clearly, what you want is already on the market and doesn't need to be copied by the Kindle.
And same with people asking for colour, and a backlight. These people are pretty much looking for a tablet, not an eInk reader.
Looks like what Kindle V2 should have been in the first place... I think e-readers have along way to go before replacing textbooks and newspapers. They need color, better contrast, and to be larger and foldable, although 9.5" is a start.
NOW I will buy one.
If I could have textbooks on this thing, I would buy it no regrets.
This thing is only for Grandpa's.
Grandpa's what?
Wow...my kids haven't even been born yet and they're already parents!
I would want to use this to read scientific journal articles on the go - PDF READER FTW!
Yes PLEASE! I really want someone to post a review using a complex journal article displayed on a PDF reader. You find one that can display two columns' worth of text, graphics, tables, and math correctly, and you have a sale.
Please tell me this is a prototype from when they were working on the Kindle 2 and not the Kindle 3. This is wwweeeaaakkk. This cannot be it. This is nothing more than a Kindle 2 with a slightly longer screen.
That's all it's *supposed* to be. It's going to be sold alongside the Kindle 2 - it's not replacing it. Choice is good, right?
$799 and locked down to read nothing but the New York Times
seriously. this thing will be expensive.
I really do not think that current e-readers are suitable for newspaper or textbook type reading. They are great for regular books, but textbooks and newspapers are a different type of reading, You browse newspapers and skim textbooks with a lot of flipping back and forth. For instance when doing the homework assigned for a particular section you go to the page that lists the problems and then flip back through the section (usually a good 10-15 pages) to aid you in solving the problem. I will say that search could be useful, but even then it would probably be quicker to skim through the section of what you are looking for instead of dealing with what could be several search results.
Believe me, being a math major, I would love to carry around a nice, thin, lightweight device than several thick, heavy textbooks, but I do not think e-readers can really replace newspapers or textbooks yet.
Concuraga.
I would have agreed with you, except that recently I've had to do some problems that involved several different parts across a couple of books. Except that I had these books on PDF files and Google books, and although there was some inconvenience, it was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. I think these technologies haven't got all that far to go before they're usable, if not already
Shirley instead of large display they meant larger display.
Une feuille du papier s'il vous plaît!
Don't call me Shirley.
You know I was already sick of all of the forced upgrades Apple puts you through, now I have to put up with it from Amazon too? Can't these companies just give us some advance warning for once instead of making us buy a new device every six months.
The original Kindle was around for well over a year before the Kindle 2 hit. That's...better then average, actually - most companies would have pushed the K2 out before the 2008 holiday season, but Amazon specifically announced that they *weren't* going to do that. As for this, it's not a replacement for the Kindle 2, it's a new, higher-end product (you'll see when the price is announced).
It's like you're blaming technology companies for being technology companies or something. Technology companies *have* to update their products often just to stay competitive; nobody is saying that you have to buy each and every iPod or Kindle.
As for "advance warning," this is the first Kindle that *hasn't* been leaked to the media months ahead of its release. Still, considering it's been heavily rumored for months now, if this is honestly a surprise to any Kindle owner, they were simply uninformed.
No color, no deal.
This is 2009 - textbooks are published with color illustrations that are vital for understanding concepts and processes. For science texts, a grayscale or monochrome offering is pointless because of this.
As of 2009 color eInk simply isn't available yet. Sure you could use an LCD, but then you'd just have an underpowered tablet.
Regarding the grayscale comment. I have said this before. I have looked at these e -readers in the store and the so-called paper-like resolution still resembles a 1980's casio digital watch. I'm sorry but the contrast claims are highly exaggerated;)
Let me guess... you go to clown college?
There are plenty of areas of college and engineering that would work fine with electronic versions of books without color. I know computer science, EE, COMPE, ME among others would work fine for the most part. Even regular language books (Japanese, Spanish, French, German, etc) would work fairly well, though I guess color is needed when learning the colors.
You know what? Get a netbook or laptop, then and stop whining about the Kindle.
The Kindle's made for readers, not tech weenies who insist on color charts and the ability to view videos. Go get a cheap tablet PC or lappy and STFU.
It does NOT look like a 1980s Casio LCD device... Unless the piece of junk you looked at in the store actually had a LCD, which is entirely possible.
News Flash: They don't sell the Kindle in stores.
I own one, and I can tell you: The display looks like a sheet of grey paper with black ink on it. There's no shimmer or glow, and you don't see pixels; It looks like print on paper.
I'm sorry the thing you saw in stores had a cheap-ass display, but if you think it looks like an LCD, then you have the wrong idea of what the Kindle 2 looks like in person.
@plothole Color E-ink is available, it is just incredibly overpriced. http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/18/fujitsu-melts-faces-and-wallets-with-flepia-the-first-color-e-b/
@Colonel Panic
Despite the fact that Engadget often refers to the Fujitsu screen technology as such, it is most definitely NOT eInk. In fact it's not even an "electrophoretic display", for which eInk is an implementation/brand of. Rather what the Fujitsu really uses is a form of "bistable LCD".
@ZeroCorpse
How sad is it that your a Kindle fanboy? Seriously, couldn't you of picked a better gadget? Was the iPhone to newfangled for you? Did it have too much color on the display? Too complicated? Please enlighten me as I'm am not a reader because I like to see things in color. Douche.
@Jack_Barron
You're calling someone else the douche after proving yourself a bigger one?
OK, this is nicer and beginning to be usable, but the display is still way too small. Anything short of Letter size is a waste of our time.
What percentage of letter sized books have you read recently? And how many would really need to be letter size if not for the fact that they are a static medium?
This is meant for newspapers, textbooks, and magazines, all of which are designed for larger formats. I have to agree. 9.7 is still too small. 12-13 is really the minimum for comfortable reading of this type of content without significant panning (which is not really a pleasant experience on a device with this kind of refresh rate). Depending on price and the accuracy of these specs/pics, I might jump on this, but I think I'm hanging in there for the plastic logic device.
So true. What is with all this teasing and $200+ incremental upgrades. By the time the higher resolution color screens and quicker refresh rates are on the market you will have probably spent $3000 on e-readers:(
Big deal. Will still be waaay too expensive and the Apple Media Pad which will do much more than just provide a way to read books will be much better and probably around the same price. I'll wait for the media pad.
Yeah... like have a really short battery life and be basically unusable in sunlight!
Ugh, I'm sorry. You just have to understand that devices like this serve a completely different nitch.
*And I know I misspelled "niche".
If Amazon charges an arm and a half for the current dinky-screened Kindle 2, how much will they want for this one?
I'll open my wallet when it's 14" diagonal.
I don't see the greatness of it being a textbook reader....monochrome would suck for gd and art majors.
Isn't DigitalReader from iRex already at size of 10.2'' ? It does costs 699€, but it's available all around the world - so why not just use that?
iRex DigitalReader 1000 for those who missed it: http://www.irextechnologies.com/irexdr1000
Mainly due to the fact that iRex really screwed the pooch on the release. They alienated a ton of customers due to undelivered specs such as battery life.
Also, the Kindle is backed by the Amazon store which despite it being closed and a bit too happy with the DRM still has the largest selection of books anywhere.
I skipped on the iRex device after I saw the backlash, but if this new Kindle's price isn't too bad I'll be right there to buy one.
Cleveland represent.
Mr. Blurrycam FTW!!
When will it work in Europe?
I love my Kindle 1, tried the Kindle 2 for a few weeks before returning it. I want more width, not length so 8 1/2 by 11 would be perfect.
Plastic Logic for the Win. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v226DYqlbHQ
Wow, now that is truly amazing. MUZST have!
Anyone who thinks that LARGER ereaders are needed have never used one. Manufacturers are playing on consumer ignorance. With digital screens, one does not need large screens except for pictures. Text size doesn't have to be reduced on digital screens, you just end up with more "pages".
What is needed is an ereader which fits in ones pocket, it light weight, backlit and has support for multiple common formats.
I've said this many times and as a long time (since the Palm III days) ebook reader I have just a bit of experience here... Small device, low price and they'll bury books, magazines and newpapers.
There is no reason that a color, backlit, 3.5" - 4" 480x320, media card, 12 hour battery, pocket sized device can't be sold for under $200us. I say this because the Tapwave Zodiacs were not much more than that years ago and are great ereaders. They do so much more, that stripping out things like the stereo chip, 32MB RAM, extra slot, etc. would significantly cut down the price.
For all the people who don't own one of these and have been bashing it, let me give you some insight from someone that actually owns one. I was skeptical, just like you, but I haven't read much in years and I wanted to get back to it. Every day that goes by, I become more and more impressed with my Kindle 2. I am reading more because it is drop dead easy to buy books cheaply and the screen is AWESOME. I keep hearing people talking about color this and color that. You have no idea. The screen looks like paper. My co-workers that were more skeptical than me saw it the first time and were blown away with the screen. They had no idea that the screen looked like paper, they just assumed it was backlit. I got headaches reading with the Kindle App for my iPhone because of the backlit screen. I have been reading with it for a couple of weeks and absolutely love the screen and no headaches. Besides the screen, I have discovered that I can send PDFs to my Kindle 2 using the FREE service and my USB connection. I have transferred some books that I had in this format and, although not perfect, it is still experimental. All you naysayers who don't own one, just stop until you know what you are talking about.
THIS.
I love my Kindle 2. People who see it in person are impressed by the e-ink display, and I love reading on it because it doesn't burn out my retinas after an hour.
I get PDFs on it thanks to Calibre and the USB cable. It's incredibly easy to order books and get them delivered via Whispernet. It's lightweight, has weeks of battery life that makes any netbook, iphone, or PDA look like a chump (I still love my iPod touch), and does what it's designed to do in the best way possible.
I don't need color, because I read grown-up novels and not picture books (OK, I do read some comic books too, but nobody published them for Kindle yet anyway) and I don't need video because I've got an iPod touch and laptop computer. I don't need the Kindle to be a tablet PC... I need it to be a dedicated e-reader that doesn't have a lot of features to distract me from using it for READING.
Your local Library >> Kindle 2 or Kindle 5 for that matter.
My local library allows e-book downloads that work great on my Kindle.
Bonus: My copy of War & Peace weighs a lot less than anything made of paper.
For those of you complaining about a 9.7" screen, a Word document with standard margins on a 8.5" x 11" piece of paper has 9.7" of text. Since the Kindle has very little margins, the difference should be negligible.
Maybe a little too big. In that second picture, I can see that it's bigger than a man!
Pics are kind of blurry - where they camera phone pics or brochure material?
Now I can dump all my manga and comic cbz's onto this thing!
For me, we're getting there. As an avid reader my ideal device allows me to download my books, have at least several books loaded onto a device, store them on my own media server and be able to pull books/PDF files/etc. from my media server over Wi-Fi. Backup on the Amazon servers is a plus.
I don't want a portable device, I want a home library tool I can comfortably read curled up in bed or anywhere else.
So far the Kindle's have been too small, but this one looks just right in the size department to me. Maybe the next generation of Kindle will convince me to pony up the cash for it instead of more bookshelves!
Amazon keeps innovating, gotta luv it. Soon enough college students will no longer get gouged on their textbook purchases. For even more info on the Kindle see: http://www.productvibe.com/kindle-2-e-book-reader.html
Anyone here actually own a Kindle? Ever tried highlighting lots of passages? Selecting text with a joystick-like button...really, that is their best?
IMHO, if this is really for students, there is going to have to be a Wacom-esque pen-abled (or finger) ability to highlight passages. Joysticks aren't going to cut it.
If Señor Bezos comes out with a design that lets you highlight half as well as you can with a highlighter on paper, well, then that'd be a game changer, but without that...well, I hardly see this being anything other than a way to fatten margins, kill the used textbook market, and make backpacks lighter.
As much as I am excited about this gem I do have a few things to point out:
1. It will still be just as overpriced as the "textbooks" one can get on it (i.e. a $400 device plus $100+ book royalty costs....)
2. I go to the Case Western Reserve University: As much as everyone wants to say that this is the first step into text books, the classes that this will be available for will not need the larger screen comparabilities at all. Case in point is the "freshman seminar" course (better known as SAGES to those with relationships to CWRU) is a class that reads books such as "Wild Seed" and "Into the Wild" and not large detailed textbooks. Similar is true for the books that will be available for the Chemistry and Comp Sci classes (based upon what many have been told).
3. The textbook aspect will take a very long time to be fully (if ever) adopted by the publishing community.
All that being said, I will not be missing my chance to play with this thing.