The Kindle DX eReader is the device produced by Amazon using e-ink technology. The Kindle came to Canada in November 2009, though it had been available in the USA since 2007. It is now available in over 100 countries. The Kindle currently has 60 per cent of the U.S. market, according to a Forrester Research report, and Sony has 35 per cent.

You can buy books, magazines, newspapers and blogs to read on your Kindle device. The books are transmitted via 3G wireless right to the device so you do not have to plug it in your computer to download files. This is a big difference between Sony and Kobo’s offering. You can also download a Kindle app to read on the Apple iPad if you do not want to buy a Kindle.

There are 600,000 books, 110 newspapers from 19 countries. and 39 magazines (none are Canadian, all are USA and International titles). There are 12 Canadian newspaper titles that include Globe & Mail, National Post, the Vancouver Sun, Calgary Herald, Montreal Gazette, Ottawa Citizen, Edmonton Journal, The Province, Victoria Times, Regina Leader-Post, Saskatchewan Star and Windsor Star. See a product video at this link.





The Kindle DX Reader Scorecard
The gadgets in this blog for e-readers will be based on a scorecard and will be evaluated on these 4 criteria to arrive at the score.

Download Speeds – The Kindle DX boast a 60 second download speed for any book, magazine or newspaper purchased. They are transmitted directly to your device through a cell phone carrier 3G wireless network. at no charge. You can also download PDFs to read on the reader from your computer using the USB attachment or send them via email to your Kindle email account (for an extra charge).

Readability – The Kindle DX has a 9.7-inch diagonal screen, I felt really comfortable reading it. The text book I downloaded was easy to read in landscape mode. (All I had to do was turn the device and it would automatically rotate the screen) The magazine I downloaded was easy to read with the larger screen, but I miss seeing my magazine in colour. Some things just don’t have the same impact in 16 shades of grayscale.

Navigation – After playing with eReaders for the last month, I miss the interactive feel of a digital edition. A PDF has poor back navigation and an interactive TOC would be a great feature to have. I bought single issues of the National Post, Chicago Tribune and Businessweek from the Amazon store (Amazon gave me a $30 credit to my account to spend ) The Amazon versions were a strictly a text base format , with no pictures and poor navigation back forth between stories and sections.

Price/Feature Value – The Amazon Kindle retails for $379  for the 9.7 inch screen and probably was a key benchmark of the Apple iPad pricing at $550 for a screen with colour. Included is a text-speech reader for books, you can download you MP3 files to the device for background music , post comments on Facebook and Twitter and an Oxford Dictionary.

The Gadget Report Rating: 4 out of 5

The Kindle has been in the market since 2007 and the device is still evolving as they have added interactive features. Industry analysts peg $150 as the magic price where widespread adoption will occur. Prices are falling for the devices and we have reach that number for the 6-inch screens, however not the larger models.

Next Device: The Apple iPad