Kindle DX delisted by Amazon Amazon has begun rolling out its latest Kindle e-readers in the UK and other international markets, but it seems the large-screen Kindle DX will no longer be part of the line-up, either in the US or abroad. Beginning on Monday, the online retailer's Kindle e-reader family now includes only the bargain-basement, ad-subsidized $ …
You seem to be dividing books into "reference" and "paperbacks". Looking at my own bookshelf, I'd say that *most* of my non-fiction titles are larger than a paperback and hardly any are works that I just just dip into to look something up. Also, there's a huge number of technical works (e.g., PDFs) that are pre-formatted to a fixed width. Viewing those on a standard kindle requires a combination of "smallest font size" and "landscape orientation".
Amazon seem to want to get out of the e-Reader market, having presumably sunk quite a lot of cash into establishing that market. Any economists out there care to suggest how that makes any kind of sense?
> Amazon seem to want to get out of the e-Reader market
No, they are maybe getting out of the bit of the market that you are interested in, because hardly anyone apart from you is interested. If you want to look at large pre-formatted documents, then other solutions to the problem are available, namely some random cheap Android tablet. You can get something second-hand off ebay for nearly free as you hardly need the latest and greatest for looking at documents.
You might not like it, but the profitable bit of the market is cheap devices with long-lasting batteries for people to read novels on. The profit, of course, coming from the books, not the device. I, like you, sometimes use my Kindle to look at data sheets and papers. But I don't get those from Amazon, so there's no profit there for them, so there's no motivation for them to produce special hardware for me.
...I'd much rather have a larger format liquid ink e-Reader than my iPad for reading books and other documents. Yes, it has less functionality but the battery life is great and it's easier on the eye. That's not to say that there isn't a use for fondleslabs it's just that one size does not fit all.
I was fortunate enough to land myself a WiFi-only third-gen Kindle (basically, the non-3G Kindle Keyboard) just after they were discontinued. It was a so-called "refurbished" model from the Amazon Marketplace, but I think in reality it was Amazon themselves, selling off their end-of-line stock. (My Kindle clearly hadn't been touched - it still had the plastic film wrapping on the screen, and not a mark on it.)
While I have nothing against tablets as such, I think of them as distinct from e-readers like my Kindle. I find the e-ink screen much easier to read for extended periods (a normal lit display with dark text on white b/g would give me a headache after a while), and the battery life just doesn't compare - as I write, my Kindle is getting its first charge in nearly a month, and it's been active the whole time.
Personally, I don't understand the "either/or" argument here - tablets and e-readers both have their place, and can even do each other's "jobs" if you want them to. Not that I wouldn't say no to a tablet too...
Usually when something like this gets discontinued, there is some kind of replacement. Perhaps a device that folds up like newsprint and is reuseable. Would be nice if you could get a subscription to the New York Times and a free E-Reader came along with it. Would certainly save a lot of trees.
Good question.
As pointed out by a previous commenter, Amazon obviously aren't really interested in the large format eReader market ie. students and professionals who want to read reference books and articles. If they were they would of priced and marketed accordingly.
Me I can see many applications for a colour e-ink (or similar low power daylight readable technology) device capable of displaying A4/Letter sized pages at or near normal size, but outside of specific business sectors, the price will be a key determining factor in their success.
Amazon are large-enough to do an HP style fire-sale and discount DX's to $100 and see what demand that stirs up.
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