A DX update: Success, finally.
I tried a third Kindle DX because of
comments here that said Kindle Support got some DX owners' wireless working. My third DX also had non-working wireless, but like those commenters, Kindle Support got mine working too.
I installed
librerator and now have easy reading in portrait of most PDFs. And even for one PDF I tried that jumped around from 1-, 2-, and 3-column text and therefore isn't a good candidate for librerator's portrait mode, it was still superior reading in landscape in librerator compared to the default Kindle DX, because I could increase the gamma, i.e., darken text that appeared too light because it was originally in color. Once I got used to the keyboard shortcuts, like "A" full page, "S" fit to width, "Shift-X" bbox adjust, librerator seems fairly streamlined for getting the typical PDF optimized for portrait reading.
I'm quite happy with this purchase. This morning I was re-reading the basketball rulebook for upcoming refereeing duties, and found that despite the slowness in navigating around the document on the DX, I prefer reading it on the DX over a similar sized tablet.
Yes, soon we'll be able to buy a nice 8" front lit reader with good PDF capabilities for a sub-$200 price. But at $103, this is a real nice interim choice. And I just like the K3 and DX reading experience, especially liking the DX full-page view.
No cover for me, as it's a heavy e-reader already, and I expect to be flipping between portrait and landscape a lot. I also don't want anything pressing against that joystick knob, possibly causing premature failure.
The
20%-off deal is still in effect. My three were all pristine, and the comments I've read from recent buyers also said theirs looked new.