Photo comparison of new Graphite DX vs a good older DX

New Graphite DX alongside Older White DX
This photo is from the Amazon's Customer Images area and is taken by D. Meador. Here's a link to the specific image which is 130k in size.  I had to make it smaller for the blog and for the loading time of the Kindle Edition of this blog.

  It's a good illustration of the subtle differences in background lightness being more evident when you can see where the lighter aspects come through in a much more intense way, as in the white that you can see within the dark area of the very lowest bird's wing as it appears in the graphite DX.

  Also see the back of the head of the 4th bird down, facing to the right. With the older DX, it's grayer.

  In the smaller background spaces that are defined by branches as in the triangle that is made between the bottom part of the 3rd bird from the end and the branch it is on that turns up a bit, the difference in whiteness isn't evident until you look at them one after another.

  Then, if you step back a bit, and look at it overall, the the definition of the full picture by contrast is evident.   The intensity of the black you see there is also seen in the text of documents on the display.

  My DX seems somewhere between the two, but if given a choice of the first or 2nd one, as seen here, my eyes definitely like the one on the left better.

D. Meador has also done a customer review of the Graphite model at Amazon.  Included in it:

' Comparison of Kindle DX (White) to DX (Graphite). The black images are sharper, and you can immediately see the difference.  The ink looks richer, darker and more like an actual book.  The graphite body color does make the "page" background appear whiter, along with the improved contrast.

  Comparing the Kindle DX to the iPad: I stopped by the Apple store and compared the DX to the iPad.  The iPad had too much glare and harsh contrast when compared to the Kindle.  Also, the fonts were crisper and easier to read on the Kindle. '

Clayton Morris, for FoxNews, does a video preview of it and also a brief review, and writes: '

'... The biggest complaint I have with the iPad is not being able to read it in direct sunlight.  In fact it’s virtually impossible.  By the pool, beach or park, that’s where my Kindle gets its biggest workout.

  ... The screen on the new Kindle DX is nice and sharp and makes reading in the sunlight a no-brainer.  If Amazon were smart, this little factoid would be plastered all over its marketing material.

  Certain features on the Kindle DX have left the iPad in the dust, such as a very thin third-inch width compared to the iPad's half-inch size. A much longer battery life -- iPad gets about 10 hours while the Kindle boasts a week on a single charge. The Kindle DX is also noticeably lighter than the iPad. But remember, the Kindle is just an ebook reader and the iPad is almost a laptop replacement, hardly the same kind of device.'

He wouldn't personally shell out another $190 for the larger Kindle, but many have, and the continuing new reviews of recently received Graphite DX's at the Amazon thread I linked to yesterday and at other Kindle forums are indicating that this is the reference e-Ink reader-screen for now and we hope it'll someday also be put on a smaller Kindle.  I did get the larger DX earlier because I'd rather read on a larger screen but many prize the easier portability of the smaller one.

---

Check often:  Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers. 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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Graphite DX probably available for more countries tonight

As many have reported in the forums -- while the Amazon ads say that the new DX is available internationally, customers have found that when they began orders for the new Graphite model that claims 50% higher contrast, the Amazon product pages for their countries (such as the ones for Australia and Spain) were telling them that the DX was available only in white for those countries.  That was perplexing.

  I did not see this restriction while simulating an order (to check on their reported problems), maybe because I'm in the U.S. -- and one customer was told by customer service that s/he would have to be residing in the U.S. to get it for Australia.  This did not make sense when it was first reported.
 There was no indication whether it was only temporarily so.

 Then, the next day, the Australia Graphite-model product page and the one for Spain (I didn't look further) were updated to display, even to me in the U.S., that the graphite model was available only in white.

 As of this afternoon, however, the Australia Graphite product-page information had changed again to say today that the DX is "currently available only in white" for that country, and I asked Kindle customer service, which said it would be just a few weeks.

  In half a day -- tonight, the product page information changed again.  Now it no longer says at all that it's available only in white and when you get to the final page for Australia, there's no hitch.  The same changes have appeared for Spain.

  Now, that could again be that I'm in the U.S., but it did change wording for me 3 times with regard to the white Kindle being the only one available, and the 'currently' modifier had just been added this week and was encouraging, as was -- even more so -- the later removal tonight of any wording about ordering restrictions and unavailability for those countries whose product pages I had been following.

  There's an off-chance that Amazon may have decided to remove restriction wording for U.S. residents wanting graphite Kindle DX's for shipping to relatives in Australia, to minimize confusion for those of us in the U.S.  But since I was told Tuesday that the graphite WOULD be available for Australia within a few weeks, it's likely that the restriction wording was removed from those product pages because Amazon has enough of them now.

With, tonight, no language about restricting orders to the white Kindle anymore, it seems that they may have solved a stocking situation or at least will give a shipping date that might be later than July 7.  As a U.S. customer, I can't get that information though.  I welcome any real-world reports from Australia.

---

Check often:  Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers. 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. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!