The Kindle DX: can it replace textbooks?

Amazon announced the Kindle DX today; it’s a 9.7-inch (diagonal) version of their existing Kindle 2 (their second-generation eBook reader).

It’s basically a large format version of the original Kindle 2. As far as I can tell, there’s only a couple of new features:

• The display will automatically rotate from portrait to landscape if you turn it on its side, and
• It supports PDF files without the need for the ($0.10) conversion.

The PDF support intrigues me; I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t just upgrade the software of the Kindle 2 to support it. Their support costs alone (just for repeatedly telling customers that, no, the PDF file they read on their big DX won’t work on the little model) would seem to substantially outweigh any marginal income ($0.10 per PDF? please…) or marketing advantage it might give.

From a personal standpoint, I’ve been hoping for this for years. Now that the hardware is available, textbook publishers need to step up and start making eBook versions of their books available. Some children carry 50-75 pounds of books to and from school each day, and college students will spend thousands of dollars on textbooks. The bulk of those thousands of dollars do not go to the publisher or author; they end up in the pockets of printers and paper providers. In addition, a lot of those dollars go to subsidize textbook costs in other countries (for example, the same textbook that costs $100 in the US may only cost $15 in India; they’re identical except for the covers—the Indian version says “Not for sale in the United States”).

Here’s hoping we see the end of paper textbooks soon.