I preordered the DX because it looked like it finally had the features to be useful for reading scholarly papers. But I sent it back, because the user experience was awful:

1. Gotta plug it in via USB to transfer files -- no wireless access (compare webDAV file reader apps for the iPhone).
2. Flattens your directory structure. Gee, thanks guys.
3. One zoom level for PDFs (OK, two, counting portrait and landscape modes. Which brings me to my next point...)
4. Freaking accelerometer would change orientations when I didn't want it to, and wouldn't change them when I did. Howabout a switch guys? (Ditto the iPhone but this was way worse)
5. The bezel around the screen is too flimsy to support the weight of the thing when you're holding it. Pro tip: make the back out of plastic and the bezel out of metal (or, don't expect to scale your 6" device to 8" without beefing up the chassis).
6. Forget AZW format. Give us SVG, PNG, EPUB, and OXPS in addition to PDF.
7. I had piss-poor 3G reception everywhere I went (downtown Cupertino and Los Gatos), so I couldn't test the Wikipedia browser properly.
8. Worst keyboard ever. Its only use is typing searches. The ultimate problem here is that the refresh rate of e-ink sucks for interactivity. So I'd take searching out, 3G out, and just make it a static reader with WiFi for file transfers and mini USB for charging. Perhaps rudimentary touch so you could tap on a word to find all instances in the current doc, or look it up in Wikipedia if on WiFi. If e-ink can't be greatly improved in the next 2 years, OLED may replace it.

That said, the packaging was awesome. Now if only Amazon would stop shipping two 4-packs of lightbulbs to my house in a goddamn 2x4' box we'd be all set.

My hopes are on Plastic Logic.

These are surprisingly useful and well-made printers (I used to have one at work).

And I thought 7 would be a free upgrade to Vista Ultimate owners...

Why are trackballs so obscure these days? I'd like to give one a try again.

Step 1: Isolate the elderly.
Step 2: Monitor remotely.
Step 3: Profit!

You're right. I misread an earlier press release. The X3 sensor has about a 1.69X crop, so yes, 24.2 sounds right for the actual focal length.

Engadget has this wrong. It's a 35mm equiv. lens.

Seriously, I hate to say this without any explanation, but this is the stupidest design I've ever seen in my life.*

-Carl

* Yes, this is hyperbole, but that doesn't make it any less true.

My favorite: Does changing the volume on the speaker box change the master iPod volume, or does it change a volume level contained entirely within the speaker system? Only the (no longer produced) Apple HiFi, and I think the high-priced B&O Zeppelin thing, do this to my knowledge. It means you don't have to fight the interaction of two separate volume levels. Few vendors take the trouble to send the volume commands over the iPod API, apparently.

9 stones is a HUGE handicap for the computer. It shows you how far we have to go with computer go, that people are getting excited over this (and despite 60 TFLOPS).

-Carl