
Amazon's full size PDF reader, the Kindle DX, is back - Terretta
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002GYWHSQ/
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MichaelGG
There may be things the DX is good for. PDFs are not one of them. The DX is
heavy, and the Amazon PDF software was pretty terrible. The biggest problem is
that most PDFs worth reading are the print-layout 2-column format, which is
hard to cram into a small screen like the DX's.

I found a Nexus 7, which weighs less and has about the same resolution, to be
far superior, because at least you can scroll around easily.

In most cases, I end up actually printing out any long papers I want to read,
because I've found no good way to view them electronically. It's idiotically
backwards, considering all the advances in tech.

I'd love to use e-ink to read papers, but so far there doesn't seem to be a
good way. I'd happily pay for software that can _properly_ change 2-column PDF
layouts into single-column.

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GregBuchholz
>I'd happily pay for software that can properly change 2-column PDF layouts
into single-column.

...what have you tried? I like K2pdfopt:

<http://www.willus.com/k2pdfopt/>

...not perfect, but works better than anything else I've tried.

~~~
MichaelGG
That looks great; I'll have to try it out. I don't recall what software I
tried before. They all promised stuff but it came out garbage, especially when
charts and stuff were involved.

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LowKarmaAccount
Besides the fact that most commercial monitors have pitiful ppi, the fact that
monitor manufacturers are selling mostly widescreen monitors with a poverty of
vertical room drives me crazy. It's hard to read a pdf of a book when its
resolution makes it hard to fit a single page onto your screen. There is
something about continuous scrolling that makes it harder for me to remember
the text that I'm reading.

So a large screen e-reader (that won't have any backlight issues) could be a
great gadget to have. I tried a Kindle DX in 2010, but I found panning around
in PDFs to be too slow for enjoyment. If and when the technology improves
enough, there could be a big student market for a large screen e-ink reader
that can display PDFs (or saner formats, like DJVU).

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breadbox
_"There is something about continuous scrolling that makes it harder for me to
remember the text that I'm reading."_

Yes! I've tried both now, and I _vastly_ prefer a page-turning interface over
continuous scrolling. I can't really explain why, though. Is it just because
I'm old?

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dragontamer
<http://www.magicscroll.net/ScrollTheWeb.html>

Classic UI problem. Continuous Scrolling is extremely damaging to your
concentration.

The issue is that group think and shear momentum prevents us from thinking of
better ways to scroll text on computer screens. Strangely, the eInk format has
brought back "page turning" (based on paper designs), which partially solve
the problem.

What we all want is for the text to remain still while we're reading and
scrolling.

~~~
nitrogen
Just don't make everybody give up scrolling (though I hate "infinite"
scrolling that dynamically loads new comment and makes the page taller). I
grew up with scrolling and prefer it over pagination for most types of
content.

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ChuckMcM
Its not quite the PDF reader I'm looking for. I consume a lot of PDFs in the
form of data sheets and manuals for things like ARM cpus. I'd really like
something closer to 12" diagonal with paper aspect ratios. Also 200+ ppi. At
one point there was a 2560 x 1600 e-ink screen in the works but I don't think
it ever saw the light of day unfortunately.

The retina iPad makes a reasonable replaceme, what it loses in size (too
small) / power (too much so has to be plugged in) / readability (lots of
glare, hard to read under bright workbench lights) it partially makes up for
with rendering speed and color support.

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larsberg
If you haven't tried it, I used the "3M Natural View Fingerprint Fading Screen
Protector with Back Skin" on my retina iPad and it made a world of difference.
It doesn't change the quality of the screen, but it dramatically reduces glare
and fingerprints. That said, putting it on requires some time and patience to
get it just right and the bubbles out.

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rockmeamedee
This news makes me happy. Not that much, because I'm still using my DX from
2010, but it shows Amazon still cares about it. My kindle is my favorite
device. I've probably read at least 50 books on it, mostly for free. I'm
getting into Dostoevsky. It reads fine. Most of them are the size of a normal
piece of paper, and it's great for that as it's nearly the same size.

I used my friend's iPad for a couple months last year, and it was completely
different. I used the iPad to read HN, watch tv, or read blogs. The kindle
remained king of my book reading.

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Casseres
I was hoping to see a newer model when I read the title. Even though it's the
same old model, it gives me hope that Amazon is still thinking about
developing newer, large screen Kindles. Perhaps this is some kind of test to
see how many people find the page, click on it, interact with the page, etc.
They might use these metrics to help determine if they should develop a newer
DX.

I love my DX. Before, I was using a Kindle Keyboard 3G. I missed the $279 sale
last summer, but e-mailed Jeff Bezos a few days later, asking if he would
honor the offer. One of his assistants tracked down my phone number, called me
a few hours later, and helped me process the order.

Pro: The Large e-Ink screen.

Cons (personal): Page-turn buttons on only one side, no highlighting in PDFs.

Cons (general): No wi-fi, lower ppi compared to newer competitors.

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codeulike
I've been thinking about how a large e-ink screen could provide an endless
series of black and white pictures to hang on my wall. But the normal kindle
isn't big enough, one of these (or four of them hacked together) might be ...

~~~
TeMPOraL
Buying a DX screen replacement, hacking a controller out of an Arduino or sth.
and hanging it on a wall sounds like a great project! Added to my TODO list
;).

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jacques_chester
I was briefly excited that this would be a new model, but ... no.

I guess they just found a few lost pallets at the factory, or something.

I have large hands, I read fast and I like to have lots of text onscreen at a
time. Regular Kindles don't cut it for me.

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NDizzle
As someone who bought the original DX the first day it was announced, it's not
something you want to use for PDFs.

You want something that is in color and something that you can easily
pinch/zoom/pan with.

E-ink is possibly the WORST platform for PDFs.

~~~
tikhonj
That _really_ depends on the PDF. Most PDFs I read are CS papers (heavy on PL
theory). The only pictures they have are commutative diagrams. For that, e-ink
is pretty good.

Of course, screen size is a different story. I've had some luck getting the
TeX sources and recompiling them to fit on the screen, but that's too much
effort in general :P. Still, for the papers I tried that way, it's great.

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matt_heimer
Am I the only one that finds $299 to be way too much money for a single
purpose device that really isn't that great at it's only purpose?

~~~
cagey
Bought a DXG refurb in early 2012 for $207. I use it every day. I would be
hard pressed to justify buying these for family members for $300.

The fact that they "brought it back" from a significant hiatus _without making
any improvement to it whatsoever_ suggests to me that this is a "last hurrah".

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pnathan
I love my DX. Normal sized kindles (non-DX) simply don't cut it for me. DX's
are very comfortable on the eyes.

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Bjoern
Ok, you got me I live under a rock. I wasn't even aware it was "gone". Did
they stop selling this temporarily?

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notatoad
yup. i think it disappeared when the paperwhite was announced.

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veidr
Cool, but this is still the same old 150ppi screen. Not the updated 212ppi
screen like on the paperwhite.

Personally I don't need the backlight, but I'm not gonna buy something for
reading that is only 150ppi. I really do want a large format kindle like this
but can't do the barbaric screen.

~~~
Fomite
"Barbaric"? Seriously?

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kibibu
150ppi? What is this, the dark ages?

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mrng
Honest question: is it any good? I deal with A LOT of pdf files on a daily
basis (theoretical physics) and I've always wanted a big-screen, e-ink reader
(plus free wireless access to Wikipedia, if I remember correctly).

~~~
username111
As long as your pdfs translate well to grayscale it should be fine.

The new kindle web browser is quite nice (I believe it uses webkit) but isn't
something you'll want to use for anything that you want to get done quickly.

I haven't tried this new DX but I love eink screens and feel that they are
much easier to read than laptop/ipad or other birgh screens.

~~~
sliverstorm
I think it's the same ol' DX, just back in _stock_.

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rbanffy
In order to find this attractive, one has to really want an e-ink display.

There are many fairly decent 10" Android tablets for less than US$299.

Like someone else said, they must have found a lost pallet at the warehouse
and decided to sell them.

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Fomite
Given both my wife and her mother vastly prefer the DX, and were rather upset
that no replacement existed when the screen broke on our old one, I'm glad
it's back.

Neither one of them cared for the Paperwhite.

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darkarmani
Auto-rotate is not a feature. I hate auto-rotate on my iphone.

Also, the lack of the backlight is crazy. Reading in bed is amazing with the
Paperwhite.

~~~
lincolnq
Hey, I felt like an idiot for not finding it sooner when I discovered this. So
maybe it helps you or someone : if you double tap the home button, then scroll
the app dock left, there's a button to disable auto-rotation on your iPhone.

~~~
darkarmani
Thank you. And now i can feel like an idiot. That's ok. I was on my iphone3G
on IOS 3.0 until 6 months ago, so i was on an ancient OS before this. That was
the last IOS version that let you upload a carrier file to unlock tethering
(even if it had the SMS exploit).

