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Nearly perfect Sep 09, 2010
Newest version has excellent to read print and contrast, best for articles with pictures, maps, newspaper descriptions make more sense in the larger format, easy on the eyes, better than an Ipad for reading, not as heavy, Ipad's bright screen sooner or later will bring you to a halt and the DX won't. I would give it five stars but think the software could be better for newspapers,provide more of newspaper view in miniature, allow you to get to articles in a more outline form. But this is a relatively small criticism. Also the hardware is better set up and provides more for a real estate feel to it than the new 3rd generation kindle which has miniaturized the controls so much as to create difficulty at times using the cursor without striking the back button.
 Worldtraveller Sep 09, 2010
I am a merchant navy Chief Engineer and I read a lot to spent the time during my months at sea. I live in Thailand where English books are very limited available.
I used to buy a stack of books on airports where I passed to join a vessel anywhere in the world and where English books are sold (like Johannesburg) to have reading matter on board. Once I had 17 books with me and after 3 months I was through them. Upon leaving the ship, most of the times I had to leave the books there as they put too much weight to my luggage.
Now with my Kindle DX I have more than 300 books with me, no more quick browsing in an airport bookstore, I just can select what I want comfortable in my home as Thailand is fully covered by the whispernet.
Moreover, I have subscribed myself to several magazines and they are automatically uploaded to my Kindle when I reach several ports. I can read them about the time of release and do not have to wait until I come home and find a 4 month stack of magazines waiting for me.
I needed some information from the internet and to my surprise it was possible to get to the internet from the ship with my Kindle DX in Apapa, Nigeria and get the information I needed.
Regarding my job, I can put manufacturer's manuals on my Kindle in PDF format in my office and show them to my engineers when they are on the job in the engineroom to give proper instructions or clarify things for them from the drawings.
Other features like the easy access to the dictionary is great, access to the internet is slow but I appreciated it very much when normal computers were not available or in hotels without internet availability.
Unfortunately, the Text to Speech feature is lost to me as a non native English speaker.
I had never expected it would become such a big part of my life. I enjoy it every day, not only on board of ships as was my intention but also at home.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Great for pdf reading, however lacking in music and internet function Sep 09, 2010
Great product I wish it was selling for $249, then it would be five stars. However, I feel it lacks in certain aspects such as internet browsing and music playing for a $379 price tag.
PROS:
Screen, Screen, Screen! So pretty!
9.7" allows comfortable reading of magazines and pdf files.
Resolution is Impressive.
Plays Music.
Browses Internet.
Text-to-Speech.
Battery Life.
Cool Factor.
Kindle Store (Free eBooks, low-cost eBooks, best selection of eBooks)
Free 3G!
As of 9/8/2010 is IN STOCK! (other Kindle models are out of stock)
CONS:
Some pdf files (large paged textbooks)require landscape view to read, maybe 10.1" screen would be better.
Can't change battery.
Screen not back light for night time reading.
No color, only shades of black.
No touch screen
Music player just plays mp3's in the order you add them to the kindle" /music" folder.
Internet Browsing is comparable to early pda's. No flash support, no video, etc...
Text-to-Speech sounds like a freaky robotic voice.
Relatively big price jump ($190 more than the 6" Kindle w/3G+Wifi) from the other two smaller Kindle models.
No Wifi.
Page turn reload time is noticeable.
Laggy/slow menu.
No way to rearrange file order within folders.
3gb of memory ( I want MORE!!)
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Worth every dime. Sep 09, 2010
As a person who's house is filled to the roof with reference books, I told myself I could buy another bookshelf and put it *somewhere*...or buy the Kindle and put all my books in one little device. I chose the Kindle and I'm not disappointed. I debated for a while though because of reading a couple negative reviews. Here's some quickies I read and my response:
Some people complained about the folders option not being suitable enough but I don't know why. You can create collections to organize everything. What more do you need?
Some people complained it was heavy. I sit on the couch with books ten times heavier...this little thing is a relief! I don't think its heavy at all.
Some people complained it didn't do enough...it's a book. If you're looking for a all in one device, this isn't it. If you want something to collect, organize and read your books from, this your device.
I love my Amazon Kindle DX! I plan on buying the little one to use for traveling.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 The DX = software issues and serious shortcomings Sep 08, 2010
This DX Graphite has a lovely display, and the browser works better than I expected.
However, the PDF software support is massively flaky, and there are important missing functions:
- I loaded one 7MB PDF into it that required almost two minutes to open each time I tried, and usually froze the machine after displaying the first page. The entire Kindle would lock up and require a hard restart by holding the power button Off for 30 seconds whenever I tried to open it. Customer support is "looking into it," but not very seriously, as they didn't even request a copy of the file to investigate.
A different smaller PDF file simply never appeared in the Home page list of documents, no matter how I tried to load it into the Kindle.
- A couple of features that were available in earlier and later Kindle versions do not exist on the DX: it does not allow adjustment of line spacing, and does not support Left justification. Both of these shortcomings reduce reading speed and readability considerably. It also offers only one typeface, contrary to earlier Kindle publicity.
- The Home page is the most unusable table of contents imaginable.
You can sort the document display by author, title, or tags(categories), but only in low-to-high sequence, and every document you own is always shown in the list. Try to image the nightmare of finding a document by an author whose name begins with Z, but which you cannot remember how to spell, once you have more than a couple of hundred documents. It would take longer to browse to the document than to read it, if you had anything like the advertised 3500 books stored!
Further, it is just a simple text list with a lot of space between the lines, which makes very poor use of screen space - a book-cover icon view would be far more useful.
What bothers me is that Amazon has given no indication of any plans to update the DX v2.5 software with bug fixes or feature upgrades. For that reason I'll probably be returning it, in spite of its excellent 9.7" screen.
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