Friday, May 8, 2009

Kindle DX's Unsung Ways and a Guided Tour



PD World's Melissa J. Perenson
lists
'5 Unsung Ways' by which the Kindle DX will
"transform reading."
'But make no mistake: Kindle DX represents far more than merely more of the same. Kindle DX is a game changer for e-book readers, and one that has a chance to transform how we consume content.'
Her listing includes large print books; children's books; English as a 2nd Language; manuals [one of my own favorites]; and self-publishing as the 5 not normally considered.  Her summary:
'The DX is far more than just the larger premium-priced "hardcover" version of the "soft cover" Kindle 2.  Instead, when it comes to the various different types of content the DX can display beautifully the Kindle DX has the potential to re-write the e-book rules -- digitally of course.'
Here's PC World's Guided Tour by Perenson, with some very good photographic examples of how useful this unit will be in many areas.  Two which stood out for me:   1)  the native PDF capability preserves the original visual layout of a document, retaining readability even with a complex layout, and 2)  an example of highlighting in a biology textbook with an illustration with small, precisely placed text that is far more readable than it would be on the 6" screen of the smaller Kindles and often not correctly converted to even make sense.

  Side note:  Wondering how the iRex iLiad and the Kindle DX fared in a comparison, I found a review which said that using the only type of input available (a stylus) means a wait of .5 to 1 second for a response when drawing and that the bootup time is 40 seconds.  Along with other points made in the review, including its *horrendous* technical support, it looks like no competition there at that price.  Here's an Engadget image of the iLiad, which averages about $860 now.

UPDATE:


Princeton University will provide students
with free Kindle DX's

in three of the courses this coming semester. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle


(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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