Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Is the Kindle DX Worth the Money?

Posted by timothy on from the wouldn't-turn-it-down-in-a-gift-basket dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Now that some little time has passed, and the hype has died down a bit, I'm wondering if anyone has taken the $500 plunge and gotten a Kindle DX. From the academic-paper-reading-geek perspective, is it worth the money? How well does it work with PDFs, and is it easy to get them on and off? I haven't been able to find any good reviews on the interweb that address its usability as I would like to use it."

1 of 263 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why not a laptop? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Depends on where. For example, online e-book stores are a booming market in Russia - virtually all titles on the market are available in dozens of formats, from open TXT, RTF, PDF and FB2, to reader-specific formats such as LIT and LRF. No DRM at all. And even a new release generally costs no more than 50% than a paper book, and older books are 3x-4x cheaper - overall it's $1.5-$2 for a typical fiction book. A lot of ways to pay, from CC and direct debit to pay terminals and pay-by-SMS.

    This isn't like AllOfMP3, either - no legal loopholes used, they work directly with authors and publishers (who set the prices). Quite a few authors have direct contracts, bypassing the publishers entirely. Thankfully, those people understand that setting the prices too high will only result in more piracy.

    Coupled with any eInk-based reader (mine is Sony, but it's more a matter of taste), it's really great - a convenient pocket library at very affordable prices.

    You could have that in U.S., too (with prices adjusted for your standard of living). What, you don't? Well, maybe your free market ain't so free...