E-Ink Part II: The Kindle DX Review for Script Readers

October 22nd, 2009Blog0 comments

Here it is: The Kindle DX. It’s clearly last year’s model compared to the Barnes and Noble Nook with its dual E-Ink/color displays and its touch screen; however, the DX’s 9.7 inch screen makes it the only real option for reading scripts. And it does this task surprisingly well.

I loaded about thirty scripts onto this thing — a mix of screenplays and stage plays — and took it for a spin. The huge screen capably displays each page and intelligently sizes it so you can see all the content. Now keep in mind that all the scripts were in .pdf format — Microsoft Word .doc files need to be converted — but the DX didn’t hiccup on any of them. Note that some .pdfs are composed of plain text and others are a bound collection of TIFFs (graphical images, usually scans of the original pages of the script). The DX handled both of them properly, although it chugs a little when you turn the pages of a .pdf made up of TIFFs. But that’s to be expected.

Readability is great. There’s far less glare than there is on Sony’s PRS 600. Letters come out crisp and neat, and I could easily see myself reading for hours with this thing. Page turns are fairly quick on text-based .pdfs. The device feels fairly solid and reasonably light enough to hold for long periods of time. The next/previous page buttons have a nice click to them. The anemic keyboard at the bottom is fairly terrible, but I don’t see myself using it very often. For me, this thing is intended to read scripts and to save trees.

There are also a few nifty hidden features. Since the E-Ink screen doesn’t require power to display an image, when you put the Kindle into Sleep Mode it drops a static picture of a dead writer on the screen. Harriet Beecher Stowe is on mine right now. You can hack your Kindle to change the screensaver images to living writers like my main man Stephen Colbert. Plus you can also play Minesweeper.

Still, a couple of strange attributes keep the DX from greatness. For some reason you can’t create sub-folders inside the DX for organizing your .pdfs. For instance, you might want to create a folder for screenplays, one for plays, one for things you’ve finished reading, one for things you’re supposed to read, etc.; you can create the folders but the DX will still display all your files together in one big list. This makes categorization impossible, and gets pretty unwieldy when you’ve got a few dozen items in there. Why have 3.3 gigs available for content if organizing and structuring that much content is impossible?

Another thing: The 5-way joystick sucks. You click in the cardinal directions to move and you click the stick in to select. Clicking left brings up a “DO YOU WANT TO DELETE THIS?” dialogue box on an item; it’s way too easy to accidentally click the center to wipe out your stuff. I’m not saying that a touch screen is the answer, but this device clearly feels like last year’s model and not the latest and greatest.

So is the DX a worthy buy? If you’re like me and you need to read a whole lot of stuff rapidly (and your heart bleeds for nature), then get it now. But if you can put it off and continue to murder trees, put it off. Something newer, better, and nicer will be coming down the pipe within six months.

But for now, this thing works. Plus I am now as cool as Victory Gardens’ literary manager.