kindle dx

Once upon last May, the Kindle DX seemed like a great academic tool for Princeton University classrooms. But students and professors have since begun to voice some discomfort.

"I hate to sound like a Luddite, but this technology is a poor excuse of an academic tool," said Aaron Horvath '10, a student in Civil Society and Public Policy, in a Daily Princetonian interview. "It's clunky, slow and a real pain to operate."

A new report by the Democratic Leadership Council probably made Jeff Bezos choke on his bagel this morning--the group of leading Democrats is proposing a Kindle for every public school student in America, with hopes of eventually saving an estimated $700 million per year on traditional textbook distribution.

Today, Amazon announced a new Kindle e-reader that has a bigger screen -- 9.7 inches diagonally -- and a bigger price tag: 489 smackeroos. So should you fork out $130 more than the last Kindle for the new version? We can't say for sure until we get to play with it for a while, but here's a preliminary guide based on the specs and our quick demo at today's press conference.