What would college be sans 50 pounds worth of expensive textbooks every semester? Happier! One, overall tuition would be slightly cheaper. Two, college would become, at the very least, a little more fun. This fall, the Kindle DX--Amazon's large-format e-book reader--has available about 285,000 books and magazines for download. The Kindle DX is expected to start replacing textbooks for selected college courses at five universities across the country.
It's an experiment, and it will be interesting to hear what the 300 student testers think about switching from physical textbooks to digital versions. But don’t feel limited--anyone can try out the Kindle DX for their own reading materials.
Dad probably would love the Kindle DX for starting his day with morning papers from around the world and moving on later to anything else he wants to invest in. The DX costs $489, and individual book downloads are typically about $10.