Amazon Kindle DX to Ship Ahead of Schedule

The long-awaited Kindle DX is due out in this month, weeks earlier than the third quarter projection, the company said.

 

Amazon will begin shipping the product on June 10, the company said.

 

The e-retailer announced the launch of its latest e-reader last month, giving customers the chance to pre-order it. The device, which was slated to launch this summer, is a sequel to the company’s Kindle 2 release in February. The latest version includes a larger screen and additional memory, Amazon said.

 

Kindle DX, pictured below, is just over a third of an inch thin, which Amazon describes as “thinner than most magazines,” and syncs with the “Kindle for iPhone (News - Alert)” app and other Kindle-compatible devices. The 9.7-inch, PDF-capable e-book will sell for $489.

 

As TMCnet reported, much of the hype around the larger-size Kindle is that it may bolster the flagging newspaper industry, long hamstrung by a loss of ad revenue to the Internet. Rumors had been circulating last month that Amazon was preparing to launch a larger version of its Kindle product.

 

The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post said they are launching pilots with Kindle DX this summer, offering the device at a reduced price to readers who live in areas where home-delivery is not available and who sign up for a long-term subscription to the Kindle edition of the newspapers.

 

In addition to reading, users can take notes and highlight, search across their library, look up words in a built-in dictionary, and carry all of their books in a lightweight device, TMC (News - Alert) said. It will also include a 250,000-word New Oxford American Dictionary, six text sizes, the ability to add bookmarks, notes, and highlights, text-to-speech technology that converts words on a page to spoken word Web searches and plug-and-play readiness.

 

Amazon’s news comes as search giant Google reportedly plans to introduce a program of its own that would let publishers sell digital versions of their newest books direct to consumers. According to the New York Times, Google (News - Alert) held discussions with publishers about entering the e-book market at the annual BookExpo convention in New York to test the waters.

 

While Amazon’s Kindle editions offer new best sellers for $9.99 compared with $26 for new hardcovers, Google said it plans to allow publishers to set consumer prices for its program, the New York Times reports. There’s no word yet as to when Google might launch a competitive product.

 

Google isn’t the only rival for Amazon. Sony Corp. announced a so-called “eBook Store,” which would provide access to more than 500,000 public domain books available through Google’s Web site, TMC reported.

 

Other companies are sure to challenge Amazon’s Kindle with cheaper, more versatile e-readers, moving beyond books, CNET says. While Kindle is geared toward book reading, other content can work just as well on an e-reader, a new Forrester Research report found. Much of that will drive the need for larger screens, color displays, and the ability to highlight text and write notes, the report said.

 

Like Kindle DX, we’ll just have to wait and see.