Amazon Kindle DX

Editors’ Note: Portions of this review were taken from our earlier review of the Kindle 2.

As it turns out, one size does not fit all when it comes to digital reading devices; at least that’s Amazon’s attitude. Just two months after releasing its slimmer, 5.4-inch Kindle 2, the company has released the larger 9.7-inch Kindle DX. Optimized for reading larger-paged textbooks and newspapers, the Kindle DX (which stands for Deluxe) not only has a larger screen, but twice the amount of storage, and an accelerometer that quickly switches to landscape mode. Still offering lightning-fast wireless downloads for thousands of available titles, a text-to-speech feature, and a design that’s thinner than the iPhone 3G, the Kindle DX is a well rounded e-book reader. However, $489 is a lot to ask when you can get a budget laptop for the same price, or the smaller Kindle 2 for almost $200 less. Still, the Kindle DX is worth the splurge for those looking for an e-book reader with a larger display.

Design

While the Kindle DX has the same design as the Kindle 2, it’s larger and heavier. At 10.4 x 7.2 inches, the Kindle DX has almost the same footprint as a magazine, and is 2.4 inches wider and 1.9 inches longer than the Kindle 2, which makes it a struggle to fit into a purse. However, at 0.38 inches thick, the DX is only 0.02 inches thicker than the Kindle 2, and almost twice as thin as the original Kindle. At 18.9 ounces (8.7 ounces more than the Kindle 2) the DX is on the heavier side, though not too pudgy for holding upright during long reading stints.

The brushed-aluminum back of the DX, contrasted with its white face, makes it look like an Apple-designed product—which is a compliment. In our hands, it felt more like a premium slate than an awkward, plastic device like the original Kindle. The back of the DX does not detach; there is no removable battery or memory card slot like the original—though Amazon says this version can hold more than 3,500 books.

Buttons and Keyboard

As with the Kindle 2, the Next and Previous Page buttons are located on the left edge, and are inward-facing to prevent the accidental page-turning issue that was prevalent on the first Kindle. The Home button gives quick access to the home screen, instead of having to search for the small Home icon on the keyboard. Two stereo speakers now sit on the rear of the device, and a 3.5mm headphone jack is at the top.

The scroll wheel has been replaced by a stiff but usable five-way controller. We preferred the scroll wheel on the first Kindle for quickly scrolling through pages instead of having to push down repeatedly, but the new controller allows for more precise movement. You can also use it to highlight text and look up words.

The QWERTY keyboard on the DX is different from that on the Kindle 2. The white oval keys remind us of Tylenol capsules, and are comfortable for creating notes, searches, and entering Web addresses, but we prefer the rounder buttons on the Kindle 2, as they fit our fingers better.

Display

Text, like that on the Kindle 2, is noticeably crisper than the original, and the DX’s larger 9.7-inch screen with a 1200 x 824-pixel resolution provides more real estate for reading. If you looked closely at the original Kindle, you could make out lots of tiny flecks, and the screen almost had a smudged look to it. The Kindle DX has the same gray background, but the smudging is gone; images appear much sharper. The 16 levels of grayscale add a lot of detail to pictures. For example, the front page of The New York Times looks much more photorealistic, rather than a sketch made with a graphite pencil.

Not only does the screen accommodate larger pages and images, but, unlike the Kindle 2, the Kindle DX has a built-in accelerometer for viewing pages in landscape mode. Like the iPhone, simply turning the device on its side reorients the screen. The screen was quick to adjust, taking about one second to go from horizontal to vertical viewing and visa versa. You can manually adjust the orientation of the screen by clicking the Aa button, which is also used to change the size of the text.

Reading on the Kindle DX over a long weekend was a pleasure. The display doesn’t induce headaches or eyesores like a computer monitor would; text is crisp yet soft enough to remind us of a page in a book. Though it’s barely noticeable, the screen still flickers. Pages turn in less than a second, which Amazon claims is 20 percent faster than the original Kindle. Reading by the pool was pleasant, and there was absolutely no glare caused by the sun. However, when it came to reading at night in our bed, we wished there was a built-in backlight.