

Amazon Launches GSM-based International Kindle Device - rbranson
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0015T963C

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Erwin
Looking at amazon.com's store, many books are not available in Europe .e.g.
"The Angel's Game" or even Dan Brown's latest. Comparing the top sellers list
(assuming you buy a Kindle hoping to get new books for $10 kindle prize rather
than $25 local imported paperback price), only 23 out of top 59 books are
available in UK (this I found by sorting by bestseller in the store with
region set to Europe and US accordingly -- the order matches up, except for
the gaps).

I'm going to wait until the International Kindle is up on Amazon.co.uk --
buying anything from outside of EU for me personally is probably more
expensive than waiting for it to arrive in UK, even though the price will
likely be higher. You've got VAT, you've got customs and you get a $25 customs
fee and VAT on top of customs fee. And of course, you're paying VAT and
customs on the shipping charge as well.

I'm still happy it's finally here although I wonder about bookstores. Do you
Kindle owners still go in, browser a bookstore and buy books at random? Even
though I buy plenty of stuff from Amazon it's mostly professional books or
hard-to-find paperbacks. I still go into bookstores several times a month and
just browse at random at highlights or new editions.

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rbanffy
"many books are not available in Europe (...) even Dan Brown's latest."

I call this a feature

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yrashk
funny, they will ship to Uganda, but not Canada

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garyrichardson
yup, looks like Canadians are screwed by licensing again.

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yrashk
is it because of licensing? my first thought was they weren't able to get a
deal with Rogers.

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s3graham
Bell/Telus have HSPA as of November, so maybe something's coming later?

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sjs
Should be. For Canada they say they are working to bring us the Kindle. They
don't say that for all countries.

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plinkplonk
this is the 6 inch version. Hopefully they'll launch the international dx
version soon. It will be HUGE in India if it works as well as advertised.

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ajaypopat
The price point is _way_ too high for mainstream usage in India. The actual
price in India is $435 ($289 base price, $42 for shipping, and $104 for import
duty!!).

I wonder if there will be a hack to buy a US Kindle and then use it locally
here in India.

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rbanffy
It would be a lot smarter to unbundle it from the unlimited wireless
connectivity forever plan. The device would be cheaper and users could decide
how much (or how little) they want to spend on connectivity. I also bet
slashing the cost of the perpetual wireless could allow Amazon to include
wifi, making moot my whole point here.

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chrisbolt
They also dropped the price of the US Kindle 2 from $299 to $259.

