Amazon on Wednesday started shipping the Kindle DX. The most advanced of the retailer's e-book readers was unveiled in May and is billed not only as a much more natural means of reading newspapers and magazines but also as an ideal tool for schools. Its 1200x824, 9.7-inch screen both affords more room for images and auto-rotates for landscape reading when the DX is tilted on its side.

The newer Kindle also provides a much asked-for support for viewing PDF files without conversion and has twice as much storage than the regular Kindle 2. As before, 3G Internet access is free and provides access to the Kindle e-book store as well as reading of pre-formatted blogs or using an experimental web browser. Amazon sells the Kindle DX for $489.