This post is courtesy of Information Today, Inc.

On May 7, just three months after introducing the second-generation Kindle, Amazon officially announced its rumored third-generation ebook reader, the Kindle DX, expected for release this summer (http://amazon.com/kindledx).

The announcement of the product, still in early beta, was made at Manhattan’s Pace University by Amazon’s Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. This “deluxe” Kindle version offers a much larger (9.7″) viewing screen, added storage capacity, and E Ink’s 16 shades of gray, allowing a reading experience “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.” Offering storage for up to 3,500 books, from a catalog of more than 280,000 titles in the Kindle Store, the new Kindle DX will also offer editions of The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post and textbooks from a variety of major academic publishers.

The new features include a built-in Adobe Reader Mobile PDF capability as well. The system appears, from pictures and prototypes, to be well-designed. “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,” Bezos explained. The price tag of $489 is $130 more than the Kindle 2 system, and it seems to have many wondering whether the added functionality will be enough to make the Kindle the future for printed materials.

Amazon’s Cinthia Portugal notes that “Over time, we believe that analog reading, be it paper books, magazines, newspapers, etc., will be replaced by digital. The responsibility is ours, though, to continue making the digital reading experience better than the physical experience.” The Kindle DX, Amazon believes, is a step in the right direction.

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