Kindle DX Thoughts

I finally broke down and got myself a Kindle DX from Amazon. I just couldn't avoid it when I saw that it supported PDF natively. And it had a larger screen for my programming books. I couldn't stop myself. Or maybe it was the 500 pounds of books that I've been moving around my house so the floors could be refinished. I kept thinking how all those books wouldn't make a Kindle weigh any more than it already did. My back thanks me. Too bad I can't put all my old books in there too.

The Kindle DX arrived nicely packaged with simple instructions to get started. The Amazon Kindle DX Leather Cover, which I highly recommend, is great for protecting the Kindle and it also makes it seem like it really is a book. The front cover folds around the back easily. Initially it took some time to get the wireless to sign in. I haven't experienced any issues since, so I am chalking it up to lack of cell towers in my area, an overcast day, and possibly problems with my cellular signal booster.

After signing in the DX quickly downloaded a book I had already purchased online and I was already reading. The screen is much easier to look at than an LCD monitor. I expected it to be slightly less gray on the background, but the subtle contrast works well for reading. A neat feature is that you can rotate the screen to change the orientation of the page. Like others have reported, it's a bit touchy so it's nice that you can lock it if you need to.

The PDF support on the DX works very well. The rendering and font support is excellent. I found only two issues. First, it doesn't support a password-protected PDF (which I didn't find surprising). Second, for some landscape-oriented documents, when you rotate the Kindle to fit the actual page size, going to the next page doesn't advance all the way, leaving you viewing the middle of two pages. I hope to see this fixed in a future software update.

Overall I am very pleased. This is a great device for people who like to read.

Pros:

• Very readable screen, and good grayscale rendering of images and diagrams


• Well built


• Large amount of storage


• Good PDF support


• Long battery life


• Amazon store works very well


• "Experimental" features like a basic web browser and music player

Cons:

• Slightly heavier than I thought it would be, but still comfortable


• Screen orientation changing is a little too sensitive


• Minor issues with some PDF files

Cox providing free Tuning Adapter to Tivo HD users

A while back I posted a nasty rant about Cox Communications and their "2-way" service. Were I more knowledgeable about the cable industry, I might have known that they are utilizing something called Switched Digital Video (SDV) - where your cable box actually "turns on" the channels it needs, allowing their network bandwidth to be better utilized. The channels I cannot receive on my Tivo Series 3 today are the SDV channels.

Now it turns out Cox is also offering a SDV Tuning Adapter to Cox customers with HD Tivo units - and it's free. This is, in my opinion, a great thing.

Also see the Tivo FAQ on SDV for more information.