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That Larger Amazon Kindle is Going to Be Used for Textbooks

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kindle-dx-2-2009-05-04_22-17-39-rm-eng_2 Looks like those who were hoping and speculating about a larger Amazon Kindle being used for text books will be getting their wish.   The Wall St. Journal is reporting that select students and select universities will be testing out program that gives the students a Kindle pre-installed with textbooks for chemistry, computer science, and a freshman seminar. The universities in the program include Case Western, Pace, Princeton, Reed, Arizona State, and the Darden School at the University of Virginia.

Other specs leaking out before the big announcement tomorrow is that the screen will be 9.7 inches and that the new Kindle will also have a PDF reader, and the ability to add annotations and highlights. The larger Kindle will be called the Kindle DX.

For those who were spending the day thinking this was going to be a newspaper announcement there’s still news coming out there as well. Apparently the New York Times will be dropping the price of its subscription from $13,99 to $9.99. There’s also this leaked picture and Engadget has more there.

4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. Sumocat

    05/05/2009 at 7:04 am

    Well, one does not preclude the other. That Amazon is targeting students is very smart, but I don’t see why they’d limit it to that group. While this is generally good news for tech advancement, it occurs to me that this likely will drive Tablet PCs further out of the mainstream market. It does not seem practical to me for students to carry around both a big Kindle and a notebook computer.

  2. Warner Crocker

    05/05/2009 at 7:23 am

    I would agree, Sumocat. The Kindle (and other form factors like it) will indeed drive Tablet PCs further into the niche.

  3. Rob Bushway

    05/05/2009 at 7:33 am

    agreed….as a Kindle owner, I have found myself using my tablet pc less and less. With devices like the Kindle and the iPhone, the reason for carrying a tablet pc diminish – except of course for the inking capability

  4. Loren Heiny

    05/05/2009 at 9:05 am

    In terms of the mass market, the “classic” convertible Tablet PC like the OEMs have been creating is in jeopardy, but not just from the Kindle. I think we’re on the cusp of rethinking what a Tablet PC/slate device is.

    Sprinkle in some interactivity in a Kindle so that someone can ink notes on a page and you have a very interesting device. Take it one step further and sell blank-paged notebooks that you can take class notes on and now you’ve really shaken things up. Imagine Evernote on a Kindle.

    Now is the Kindle DX going to include inking? Can’t say. However, how many generations of Kindles away might it be before we see such offerings? I’m thinking not too many.

    Now can the Tablet PC and Kindle coexist? You bet. But then again so can a Kindle and an iPhone and something like a MacBook.

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