Kindle 2 (photo by ShakataGaNai, CC-By-SA)

Just one month after our household welcomed the beautifully designed Kindle 2 to supply the latest books while we live overseas, out comes the Kindle DX, the version that promises to provide 8.5″ x 11″ viewing pleasure, and has been put forth as possible savior for the college student and the newspaper industry (with the emphasis on “paper”).

The inevitable march towards electronic paper is exciting, as the screen on the Kindle is gorgeous when it comes to displaying static pages. However, I fear this may not be so much “digital papyrus” as it is “digital pyrite” — the new media version of fool’s gold. There’s several reasons why.

If you don’t own a Kindle, you may not know how s-l-o-w the screen is to refresh. We’re talking page-to-page times that take more than one full second. Because of the technology used, the process of turning the page means having to flip and invert all the pixels before presenting the next page, creating an X-ray-like flashing effect. This is not so bad for reading that crime novel serially as you spend 15-20 seconds per page. But for the browsing, searching and scanning mode one uses as a newspaper reader and college exam crammer, I’m afraid the lag time and flashing effect providing a rather jarring experience.

Second, interactivity has some ways to go on this device. It’s not Amazon’s fault per se, but we’re so used to iPhone’s touch screen experience that anything less than that feels like a handicap. The Kindle’s screen is not touch sensitive, so I often find myself having to slap my own hand away from interacting directly with the page. Instead, you’re stuck with a very “1.0″ four-way tiny joystick, that seems so yesteryear when you have something like Google Earth on iPhone that makes you feel like a demigod as you spin, rotate and fly around the globe while you slip and slide your two fingers on the glass.

By now you know the Kindle is a monochrome device. With Kindle 2′s paperback-sized screen, black-and-white only isn’t a liability. But as an alternative to college textbooks, the lack of color becomes problematic. Given that some of the most expensive books the Kindle might replace are biology, science and medical textbooks, the lack of color diagrams and illustrations reduces the prospects people will convert to the DX device. Add to this, the rumors that Apple is working on a iPad — a larger screen version of an iPod touch-like device — and suddenly Amazon’s device may look a generation behind as people will find a general computing device with a large color screen a better value.

Which brings us to the price. People have gasped at its $489 price tag for a dedicated-use, monochrome device that lacks even a decent Web browser. At that pricepoint, many decent sized netbooks are available that provide much more functionality and not much more bulk.

Will Amazon DX sell? Of course it will, it’s a sweet early adopter device that makes lots of folks drool. Leo Laporte of TWiT.tv said his 75-year old mom fell in love with the Kindle, and felt she could take up reading again because of the large adjustable font size. That’s a great Mother’s Day gift for her. And no doubt with its built-in networking with Whispernet, it will be a great device for end users who don’t like interacting with a PC.

Will Amazon DX sell in quantities that will make a difference to the textbook and newspaper market? I can’t see that happening with this model. The lack of color, the lack of extendibility and its failure to be a general purpose tool is a big drawback. Some will say that the Macintosh with a black and white screen changed everything back in 1984 when everything else was color. But the Mac had so many more paradigm shifts even with a lesser screen. The Kindle doesn’t do the same. It mimics paper and the most basic version of a printing press, in a beuatiful form factor. But that’s about it. It’s not a game changer, though it might just make the newspaper industry think there’s some overtime to be played.