Now that I have been using my Kindle DX for a couple of weeks, I have some observations. First, all of the menu-driven controls that I criticized a little bit in assessing the changes from kindle 1 to Kindle 2 are not as problematic as I thought. Switching the wifi on and off is pretty easy, and, as long as I make the assumption that the thing is on when the machine is asleep or off (and I can’t see the indicator), not a difficult to deal with as I thought. Also, the battery life is better, so leaving the wifi on doesn’t kill the machine as quickly as it does on my Kindle 1. All good. And I do have to say that since getting the DX, my Kindle 1 has pretty much stayed put in my bag.
As I look at the DX, I think that its fate will be one of the following:
1. The DX will be known in the long run as the Kindle, and people will ask, “Wasn’t there another, smaller version of the Kindle before this one?” (Yes, it doesn’t fit in a handbag the way the Kindle 1 and Kindle 2 fit in a handbag, but given the size of the handbags carried by my wife and daughter, the DX will fit in a lot of handbags just fine.)
OR
2. The DX will be overwhelmed by the flood of newer, bigger machines from other manufacturers in the next 18 months, and people will wonder about that funny machine that Amazon used to produce that was too big to be really convenient, too expensive to be adopted en masse, and not quite functional enough to read a magazine or newspaper on. (And isn’t that the one with no color?)
Somehow, I think it will be one or the other: the standard for ereading devices, or a footnote in the development of ereaders, an historical oddity. Whichever it is, the machine I have in my hands right now is pretty cool!
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