Amazon Kindle DX e-reader

Amazon says its new e-reader will allow college students to easily carry and access textbooks, and says the Amazon Kindle DX is ideal for larger-format periodicals such as newspapers and magazines.

When we tried out the Amazon Kindle DX we found some interesting new features, but it isn't as revolutionary as its promoters might like us to think.

The Amazon Kindle DX is indeed larger than the Kindle 2: the new model measures 246x183x9.65mm. (The Kindle 2 checks in at the same thickness, but is shorter and narrower.) The Amazon Kindle DX has a 9.7in. diagonal screen; the Kindle 2 has a 6in display. And at 0.53kg, it weighs nearly twice as much as the smaller version.

Not only does the Amazon Kindle DX have a larger screen, it also has a slightly better one. The new 824-by-1200 pixel display shows text at 150dpi; the Kindle 2 displays up to 600 pixels by 800 pixels at 167dpi. But without being able to compare the two models side by side, the difference in quality wasn't immediately evident.

The large display makes browsing a bit easier, but otherwise, the Kindle browser has not changed - it is still somewhat awkward to use. (Maybe this explains why you still access the browser by clicking on the category labeled "Experimental".)

Despite the added weight, the Amazon Kindle DX is as comfortable to handle as its smaller predecessor. In fact, we found the keyboard, which is now somewhat larger and allows for more space between the keys, easier to work with; when we use it for a couple of searches, we get nearly the number of typos we did with the Kindle.

There are a few other physical differences. The Amazon Kindle DX's control buttons are all on the right-hand side of the screen. (In the smaller Kindle, the "Prev Page" and a second "Next Page" button are on the left side.)

However, lefties need not despair; the Amazon Kindle DX features a nifty auto-rotate feature, so that by flipping the device upside down, all your buttons are on the lefthand side. But you'll have to cope, of course, with upside down button labels.

The auto-rotate was actually one of the cooler new features of the Amazon Kindle DX, which also enables you to view a document in landscape mode by flipping the device on its side. It works quite nicely, switching modes only a little slower than it takes to move from one page to the next.

Another useful new feature is the ability to read PDF files natively after they're imported via email. The Amazon Kindle DX also offers twice as much storage as the smaller Kindle - 4GB total, of which 3.3GB is available for content. And it now allows you to format documents for wider margins.

There are some things that the new Amazon Kindle DX still does not include. According to an Amazon representative, there are no colour versions on the horizon. And it still doesn't have backlighting, which Bezos presented not as a bug but as a feature. The Amazon Kindle DX, he said, helps people avoid eye strain by not having to deal with the glare of a backlight.

Those of us who read in bed, or students who need to make notes in a darkened lecture hall, may beg to differ.