Amazon Revives the Kindle DX!

Wow! Amazon’s suddenly started selling a product that everyone thought they’d discontinued back in October! It’s the Kindle DX — with a huge 9.7-inch black-and-white screen on a device that’s nearly 11 inches tall. It was one of the last Kindles that Amazon ever released with a keyboard built right into the plastic, instead of using an on-screen “virtual” keyboard like the ones in the Kindle Paperwhite. And the Kindle DX ships with free 3G wireless connectivity, so you can surf the web even when you’re away from your WiFi connection!

The Kindle DX has always been one of my favorite Kindle models. (I always joke that the only thing better than an e-ink screen is a big e-ink screen…) I’m baffled as to why Amazon chose to revive this product line now. But maybe Amazon thinks the Kindle DX is a nice gift idea for Father’s Day. It’s got the biggest screen of any Kindle that Amazon’s ever released, and without all the distractions of a full-color tablet.

This is especially exciting because just eight months ago, I came to this blog to write a sad post called “Goodbye to the Kindle DX.” The month before a Kindle executive had surprised a technology site called The Verge with the news that Amazon is “pretty much done” with the Kindle DX. In that same interview, he’d emphasized that Amazon wouldn’t abandon the Kindle DX — though he never said what Amazon would be doing. At the time NBC News reported that the Kindle DX would go “to e-reader heaven” — though they admitted at the time that Amazon hadn’t actually confirmed that.

So in an unexpected move, Amazon has again started selling them again — and it’s almost as though Amazon has turned back the clock. The Huffington Post noted that basically Amazon “is re-releasing a product from 2009,” though it’s still a little expensive. At $299, the Kindle DX costs $100 more than some of Amazon’s color Kindle Fire HD tablets. But that’s actually a discount from the original selling price for the Kindle DX, which was $380.

And best of all, you can read ebooks on a giant screen that’s 7.2 inches wide by 10.4 inches tall…