Chicago Sun-Times review of DX, and my first-look

Good review by Andy Ihnatko for the Chicago Sun-Times.  Two answers to his question re the DX looking "great but who's gonna pay $489"  are along the lines of Ihnatko and yours truly.  I got my Kindle DX on the same day that review was published, Thursday.

See UPDATE 6/30 at bottom re number keys and alt/shift-combo keys.

  I'll do some photos and a small write-up after trying it out more.  It looks huge in photos (and it's not small) but it seems smaller once in your hands although of course it IS heavier than the Kindle 2, which remains my take-out Kindle when I'm out and about, in the city.

  I'll say one thing right now -- the keyboard is far better than the Kindle 2's, as I can type about twice as fast on it and the 5-way speed going up and down lines is much faster.

  I've put many PDFs on it, and it's a beautiful thing.  Will do photo comparisons of font appearance and screen contrast also, during the next week.  The material jumps out at you it's so clear.  And I've already felt (and so have friends) that the 6" Kindles were both very clear.  But this is on another level.

  However, Amazon has managed to miscalculate once more and the DX is now again not in stock for another 4 to 6 weeks. So for those interested in getting the device, it's back to pre-ordering to get a better spot in the line.

  Ihnatko's very entertaining review matches my own reactions to the DX, but still, if I could have only one Kindle it would have to be the one I can easily carry around with me outside, the 6" version.  For men, it may be different.

  I did think about buying a separate shoulder-strap flat-carrier for the DX, but the Kindle 2 will do fine for portable use.  Also a determining factor is the strength of need for accurate viewing of PDF's.  While the Sun-Times headline asks who will pay that price, he does mention the usual $30-$60/month cost of 24/7 wireless, which alone pays for the 6" device in a year, not including book-cost savings.

  And for new people reading, yes, the Kindle accepts books from almost any source around except for copyrighted books with digital-rights put on by another company.  Sony and Amazon adhere to that kind of thing, which is partly from publisher pressure.  But if you've paid for a book, you should be able to read it on any device so they'll have to work on that and it seems the trend is toward that.

I did find out that when reading a PDF, the dictionary is available to you within the PDF via the SEARCH box which comes up at the bottom when you start to type a word.  You can type in a word that puzzles and then 5-way to the right to choose the 'dictionary' option, which then starts a look-up on the word and brings up the full definition and when you press the BACK button, you're back to that spot in your PDF.  That's it for now.

UPDATE 6/30/09 - KEYBOARD: Alternative, sequential alt and shift key combos
  The Kindle DX's keyboard numerals share the top row space with alpha characters, and this choice has drawn many complaints especially because it had seemed the alt-key would have to be pressed simultaneously with the number key.

  It turns out that the number-combos work if you press them sequentially.  While this still won't be workable for math students or for anyone needing to do notes with numbers, it's considerably better than having to press the alt-key and a number key at the same time when holding the Kindle.  The sequence should be done fairly quickly though, as there is a time limit, I found.

  The sequential key sequence also holds for capitalization of letters.
The shift key doesn't have to be pressed at the same time as the alpha-character but can be pressed just before it.  (This is also true for the Kindle 1 but not for the Kindle 2.)