Introducing Kindle DX--Amazon's Large Screen Addition to the Kindle Family
of Wireless Reading Devices
Large Kindle DX Display and New Features Provide Enhanced Experience for Reading
a Wide Range of Professional and Personal Documents
The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post to Launch Trials
Offering Kindle DX to Subscribers Who Live in Areas Where Home Delivery is Not
Available
Leading Textbook Publishers to Offer Textbooks in Kindle Store
Five Universities to Launch Trials with Students Using Kindle DX in Fall 2009
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May. 6, 2009-- Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today
introduced Amazon Kindle DX, the new purpose-built reading device that offers
Kindle’s revolutionary wireless delivery and massive selection of content with a
large 9.7-inch electronic paper display, built-in PDF reader, auto-rotate
capability, and storage for up to 3,500 books. More than 275,000 books are now
available in the Kindle Store, including 107 of 112 current New York Times Best
Sellers. New York Times Bestsellers and New Releases are $9.99 unless marked
otherwise. Top U.S. and international magazines and newspapers plus more than
1,500 blogs are also available. Kindle DX is available for pre-order starting
today for $489 at http://amazon.com/kindleDX and will ship this summer.
“Personal and professional documents look so good on the big Kindle DX display
that you’ll find yourself changing ink-toner cartridges less often,” said Jeff
Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “Cookbooks, computer books, and textbooks –
anything highly formatted – also shine on the Kindle DX. Carry all your
documents and your whole library in one slender package.”
New Large Display
Kindle DX’s display has 2.5 times the surface area of Kindle’s 6-inch display.
The larger electronic paper display with 16 shades of gray has more area for
graphic-rich content such as professional and personal documents, newspapers and
magazines, and textbooks. Kindle reads like printed words on paper because the
screen works using real ink and doesn’t use a backlight, eliminating the
eyestrain and glare associated with other electronic displays.
The New York Times Company and Washington Post Company are launching pilots with
Kindle DX this summer. The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Washington
Post will offer the Kindle DX at a reduced price to readers who live in areas
where home-delivery is not available and who sign up for a long-term
subscription to the Kindle edition of the newspapers.
“At The New York Times Company we are always seeking new ways for our millions
of readers to have full and continuing access to our high-quality news and
information,” said Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., chairman, The New York Times Company
and publisher, The New York Times. "The wireless delivery and new value-added
features of the Kindle DX will provide our large, loyal audience, no matter
where they live, with an exciting new way to interact with The New York Times
and The Boston Globe. Additionally, by offering a subscription through the
Kindle DX to readers who live outside of our delivery areas, we will extend our
reach to our loyal readers who will be able to more readily enjoy their favorite
newspapers. Meanwhile, we are continuing to work with Amazon to make The New
York Times and The Boston Globe experiences on Kindle better than ever."
Kindle DX’s large display offers an enhanced reading experience with another
category of graphic-rich content—textbooks. With complex images, tables, charts,
graphs, and equations, textbooks look best on a large display. Leading textbook
publishers Cengage Learning, Pearson, and Wiley, together representing more than
60 percent of the U.S. higher education textbook market, will begin offering
textbooks through the Kindle Store beginning this summer. Textbooks under the
following brands will be available: Addison-Wesley, Allyn & Bacon, Benjamin
Cummings, Longman & Prentice Hall (Pearson); Wadsworth, Brooks/Cole, Course
Technology, Delmar, Heinle, Schirmer, South-Western (Cengage); and Wiley Higher
Education.
Arizona State University, Case Western Reserve University, Princeton University,
Reed College, and Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia will
launch trial programs to make Kindle DX devices available to students this fall.
The schools will distribute hundreds of Kindle DX devices to students spread
across a broad range of academic disciplines. In addition to reading on a
considerably larger screen, students will be able to take advantage of popular
Kindle features such as the ability to take notes and highlight, search across
their library, look up words in a built-in dictionary, and carry all of their
books in a lightweight device.
“The Kindle DX holds enormous potential to influence the way students learn,”
said Barbara R. Snyder, president of Case Western Reserve University. “We look
forward to seeing how the device affects the participation of both students and
faculty in the educational experience.”
New Built-In PDF Reader
Kindle DX features a built-in PDF reader using Adobe Reader Mobile technology
for reading professional and personal documents. Like other types of documents
on Kindle, customers simply email their PDF format documents to their Kindle
email address or move them over using a USB connection. With a larger display
and built-in PDF reader, Kindle DX customers can read professional and personal
documents with more complex layouts without scrolling, panning, or zooming, and
without re-flowing, which destroys the original structure of the document.
Everything from annual reports with graphs to flight manuals with maps to
musical scores can be viewed on a single, crisp screen with Kindle DX.
New Auto-Rotation
Kindle DX’s display content auto-rotates so users can read in portrait or
landscape mode, or flip the device to read with either hand. Simply turn Kindle
DX and immediately see full-width landscape views of maps, graphs, tables,
images, and Web pages.
New 3.3 GB Memory Holds Up To 3,500 Books
With 3.3 GB of available memory, Kindle DX can hold up to 3,500 books, compared
with 1,500 with Kindle. And because Amazon automatically backs up a copy of
every Kindle book purchased, customers can wirelessly re-download titles from
their library at any time.
Incredibly Thin
Kindle DX is just over a third of an inch thin, which is thinner than most
magazines.
3G Wireless, No PC, No Hunting for Wi-Fi Hot Spots
Just like Kindle, Kindle DX customers automatically take advantage of Amazon
Whispernet to wirelessly shop the Kindle Store, download or receive new content
in less than 60 seconds, and read from their library—all without a PC, Wi-Fi hot
spot, or syncing. Amazon still pays for the wireless connectivity on Kindle DX
so books can be downloaded in less than 60 seconds—with no monthly fees, data
plans, or service contracts.
Syncs With Kindle for iPhone and other Kindle Compatible Devices
Just like Kindle, Kindle DX uses Amazon Whispersync technology to automatically
sync content across Kindle, Kindle DX, Kindle for iPhone, and other devices in
the future. With Whispersync, customers can easily move from device to device
and never lose their place in their reading.
Massive Selection of Books—Plus Newspapers, Magazines, and Blogs
The Kindle Store currently offers more than 275,000 books, including popular
books like New York Times Bestsellers, New Releases, and fiction and nonfiction
released in the past several years. Dozens of newspapers and magazines are also
available for subscription or single-edition purchase. BusinessWeek and The New
England Journal of Medicine are available in the Kindle Store starting today,
and The Economist will be available soon. Subscriptions are auto-delivered
wirelessly to Kindle overnight so that the latest edition is waiting for
customers when they wake up. Over 1,500 blogs are available on Kindle and
updated and downloaded wirelessly throughout the day.
Kindle DX includes all the other features Kindle customers enjoy every day,
including:
Amazon Kindle is sold through Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
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About Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened
on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's Biggest Selection.
Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where
customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and
endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and
other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in
categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics
& Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel; Shoes &
Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial.
Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to
in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon's own back-end technology
platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business.
Examples of the services offered by Amazon Web Services are Amazon Elastic
Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon
SimpleDB, Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS), Amazon Flexible Payments
Service (Amazon FPS), Amazon Mechanical Turk and Amazon CloudFront.
Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com,
www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca,
and www.amazon.cn.
As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com,
Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.
Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of
Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management's
expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties
that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth,
new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating
results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims,
fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements,
acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system
interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud.
More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's
financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and
subsequent filings.
Source: Amazon.com, Inc.
Amazon.com, Inc.
Amazon Media Hotline, 206-266-7180