E-Reader Price Cuts Continue as Amazon Slashes Kindle DX By $110

E-reader price cutting continued on Thursday as Amazon slashed the price of its Kindle DX by $110 to $379 while introducing a new, improved model that took the place of the existing $489 model. Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about why it cut the pricing and whether the old DX model had been completely sold through.

Enhanced features are being introduced in the e-reader market as rapidly as the lower pricing. Amazon had slashed the price of its entry-level Kindle by $70 to $189 early last week, only a few hours after Barnes & Noble cut the price of its existing Nook with Wi-Fi and 3G capability by $60 to $199 and unveiled a Nook Wi-Fi-only SKU at $149 (CED June 22 p7).

The new Kindle DX features a 9.7-inch E-Ink screen like its predecessor, compared to the 6-inch screen on the entry-level Kindle. But Amazon said the new DX “features a new graphite enclosure and an all new, high contrast electronic ink display with 50 percent better contrast for the clearest text and sharpest images.” The improved contrast and “darker fonts” will make it “easier than ever to read wherever” the user is, “whether it’s outside in bright sunlight or under the low light of your living room,” said Amazon Kindle Senior Vice President Steve Kessel.

Amazon started taking pre-orders for the new DX at its website and said it will ship Wednesday. The older DX was pulled from the site.

There are now more than 620,000 e-books available for Kindles, including new releases and 108 of 111 New York Times bestsellers starting at $9.99 or less, Amazon said. More than 200,000 e-books were added to the U.S. Kindle Store “in just the last six months,” including all of John Grisham’s titles, it said. There are also 1.8 million free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books available to read on Kindles, including The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice and Treasure Island, it said.

Barnes & Noble continues to try to differentiate its Nooks from Kindles and other rival e-readers by stressing that Nooks are the only ones that allow users to lend titles to friends free of charge for up to 14 days at a time. The two-week period was what the participating publishing houses agreed to, Douglas Gottlieb, Barnes & Noble vice president of digital products, recently told us. But the publishers haven’t allowed users of any of the rival devices to lend titles for any amount of time, he said. Two weeks is enough time for many users to read a full book, he said, but conceded that it’s not quite enough time for some readers.