Is the Kindle DX the begining of the end of print?: Bloggers on the potential of e-books

Some backpacks at Princeton University are about to get a lot lighter.

Starting next fall, students in three Princeton classes will be given free Kindle electronic readers instead of textbooks and other class reading materials.

The university is one of five colleges and universities trying out the Kindle DX, Amazon.com's new e-book reader. The lightweight device-- which has a 9.7-inch screen that can store up to 3,500 books, newspapers and magazines-- was unveiled last week with great fanfare. 

The new version of the Kindle has been hyped as everything from the savoir of the newspaper industry to the grim reaper for stores that buy and sell used college textbooks.

Bloggers on technology, education and book publishing websites have been casting a skeptical eye on the $489 Kindle DX. Is the sleek white tablet really the future of the written word? Or is this just another in a long line of semi-successful attempts to persuade readers to abandon print for good?