Amazon launches $489 large-screen Kindle

NEW YORK -- The DX has a 9.7-inch display, vs. the 6-inch screen of Amazon's Kindle 2 model. The larger screen makes reading electronic versions of newspapers, magazines, textbooks, even sheet music, more palatable than on the $359 Kindle 2.

The DX is better for reading personal and professional documents that have charts, tables and graphs, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in an interview after the unveiling of the device here.

Is the price worth it? "At $489, that's a lot for a consumer to bear," says Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at researcher NPD Group. Avi Greengart, mobile devices research director at Current Analysis, agrees: "Broadening the product line is usually a very good thing. But in this case, they're broadening the line up rather than down. And the line started at a very high price."

Bezos concedes that Kindles are "very expensive to manufacture." But he says, "They are not expensive to own." His reasoning: Kindle owners don't pay any fees associated with the cellular Whispernet service that lets them search for and fetch purchased books and periodicals from the wireless Kindle Store in less than a minute.

Still, Amazon and its partners are experimenting with cellphone-like pricing models. The New York Times, Boston Globe and The Washington Post are planning pilot programs this summer to offer the Kindle DX at a reduced cost to customers willing to commit to long-term subscriptions. These will be customers who live in areas where same-day home delivery isn't available. Bezos says to stay tuned for details.

Much has been made of the role electronic readers such as Kindle (or coming rivals) might play in helping newspapers and magazines.

Edward Atorino, media analyst at The Benchmark Co.,says Kindle DX "won't move the needle for companies with multimillion-dollar revenues. It'll take a long time to mean something."