Amazon Launch Kindle DX 9.7" Wireless Reading Device

Today is the launch of the Kindle DX, the large 9.7" screen addition to the Kindle family.

This is the customer letter by Jeff Bezos:

Dear Customers,

A strange thing happened on the way to the paperless society. We humans created more paper than ever before. Computer printers (and their evil companion, the ink-toner cartridge) have proliferated, and most of us routinely print out and lug around loads of personal and professional documents. Why? It's not that buying printers or changing ink-toner cartridges is fun. It's because reading on paper is better than reading on traditional computer displays. Printing has been worth the hassle.

Kindle starts to change that. People who see Kindle's display for the first time do a double-take. It looks and reads like real paper. People who swore they would never read books on computers are reading books on Kindle in numbers far greater than we ever expected. And they're now starting to ask: If I can carry my whole library around on my Kindle, how about I carry all my personal and professional documents there too?

We're excited to announce Kindle DX, the large screen addition to the Kindle family.

Kindle DX's display is two and a half times the size of the Kindle display. The display is large enough that you can read PDF files natively without scrolling, panning, or zooming, and without re-flowing, which destroys the original structure of the document. Text and images are amazingly sharp, and you can carry all your personal and professional documents with you in one slender package.

Kindle DX is also terrific for reading books, magazines, and newspapers. The Kindle Store has more than 275,000 books to choose from, including 107 of 112 New York Times bestsellers. Thin as a magazine, Kindle DX holds up to 3,500 books. The larger screen size especially benefits highly formatted books like cookbooks, computer books, and textbooks.

Kindle DX is wireless so you can think of a book and start reading it in under a minute. Email personal documents to your Kindle DX, and they too will be delivered wirelessly. Our vision is every book ever printed, in any language, all available in less than 60 seconds. Inching a bit closer to a paperless society sounds good too.

We hope you enjoy this new addition to the Kindle family.

Jeff Bezos
Founder, Amazon.com

P.S. To have Kindle DX shipped the day it becomes available, preorder today to reserve your place in line. The Kindle DX page has a side-by-side comparison with Kindle so you can choose the right one for you.

Some additional details from Wired Gadget Lab:

Among the new feature are an auto-rotating screen, technology iPhone users will be familiar with, and a native PDF reader, finally adding support in that ubiquitous digital format.

The device measures one-third of an inch thick. Its 9.7-inch screen offers 1200 x 824 pixels at 150 dpi, and 16 levels of gray (like the Kindle 2). The screen is held within a plastic housing that measures 10.4″ tall by 7.2″ wide; the unit weighs about 1 pound 3 ounces. Like the two earlier Kindles, the Kindle DX has wireless download capabilities via the Sprint EVDO network.

It contains about 3.3GB of usable memory for storing books, and can display or play a wide variety of text and document formats — including, significantly, at least three open formats: PDF, MP3 and TXT.

Shipping this summer, the Kindle DX costs $489 and is available for pre-order from Amazon.com.