Amazon's Jeff Bezos said in a recent interview he doesn't see the iPad and Kindle competing in the same product category, but the online retailer does seem to be feeling the pressure. Today they have announced an updated version of the Kindle DX e-book reader, with a higher-contrast display and a lower price of $379. That's a $110 cut from the previous model, all while maintaining free 3G wireless access to the Kindle store and no annual contracts or data plan costs.
The new DX model sports a new graphite enclosure, it's about a third of an inch thick and can carry 3,500 books. And speaking of books, Amazon's Kindle Store now offers over 620,000 titles, most priced at $9.99. The storefront added more than 200,000 books in the last six months, and also features over 1.8 million free out-of-copyright releases.
The updated Kindle DX model arrives just a week after Amazon slashed the price of its original Kindle unit from $259 to $189. The company believes its devices' non-glossy, paper-like screens are much better suited for reading books. But despite recent moves to price hardware more aggressively, the company is in the business of selling e-books, and is fine with users reading them on whatever's available. So far, they've released apps for the iPhone, iPad, and Android devices.