Kindle DX by Amazon

At $489, this is not the cheapest toy you are going to find on the technology market, but it may just be worth its hefty price tag.  What is the one aspect of a mobile content “reader” you would always like more of?  How about more screen real estate…?  The new Kindle has a 9.7 inch electronic paper display.  This brings the Kindle experience closer to actually holding an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper, which is essentially the ultimate goal of an eBook reader.  The electronic ink works just like real ink meaning that you don’t need a backlight, eliminating eye strain associated with reading off typical electronic displays.

Auto-rotation seems to be another highly anticipated feature.  Like many of the smart phone devices available today, the Kindle will switch from portrait to landscape mode simply by rotating the actual device.   Personally, I love that feature on my smart phone.

Internal storage capacity appears to have been more than doubled to 3.5 GB.  That may not seem like ton of storage when you think of it in music terms, like an iPod, but 3.5 GB can hold an enormous amount of text.

This device is thinner than a typical magazine and has a free always-on connection for downloading content, using the cell phone data networks.  Just like with the previous Kindle models, you do not have to sign up or pay to use that service.

It has been said that printing the New York times costs roughly twice as much as it would to supply a free Kindle to all of its subscribers.  I wonder how long it will be before that interesting anecdote becomes a reality.  In any case, I would agree that the Kindle along with its now and future competitors will change the way millions of people read anything.

*Prediction* The Kindle will eventually have a touch screen and will become the standard device for signing contracts digitally, without ever needing to print hard copies.