Amazon Kindle hitting UK on 19 October
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By Stuart Turton
Posted on 7 Oct 2009 at 08:09
Amazon has announced that it will bring the Kindle to the UK on 19 October.
The new Wireless International version of the Kindle is identical to the Kindle 2 and sports a 6in screen, a free 3G connection for buying books wirelessly and comes with 2GB of memory, enough for around 15,000 books according to Amazon.
Bizarrely, British customers will need to buy the eBook reader through the US store and pay import duty. The Kindle will cost $279, which is around £175 at the current exchange rate. With shipping and duty costs, customers will be looking at paying around £200 for the Kindle.
And it's not only the eBook reader itself that will be shipped from Amazon.com, with the company confirming that eBooks will also be dispatched from its American site - meaning that texts are likely to have US localisation, an annoying feature for those of us who aren't keen on words peppered with the letter z.
We can also look forward to a US power supply, though the device can be charged over USB. It's a situation Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says will be rectified soon.
In the future, we plan to introduce a UK-centric Kindle experience, enabling you to purchase Kindle and Kindle books in sterling from our Amazon.co.uk site
"In the future, we plan to introduce a UK-centric Kindle experience, enabling you to purchase Kindle and Kindle books in sterling from our Amazon.co.uk site" Bezos writes in a letter published on the UK site.
The deal means UK customers now have access to over 250,000 texts from Amazon.com, though the company has signed subscription deals with The Times, Telegraph and Daily Mail, allowing customers to wake up to their newspaper every morning.
There's still no word on which network provider is supplying access to the 3G network. We've contacted Amazon for more information and will update the story when we have it.
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Sounds like a rushed square peg
Import-it-yourself? No Power supply? Dubious info on possible 3G phone charges? US only books? AND a £200 price tag?
Not doing us any favours are they? (sorry favors!)
Considering you can buy a SONY reader for £149 and go to Waterstones or WHSmith's website and save £50+, it doesn't travel well.
I have a friend who is dyslexic and the Kindle's text to speech facility was of great interest, but I think it will be a case of "wait and see".
It certainly sounds like early adopters are going to get a very raw deal.
By cheysuli on 7 Oct 2009 
Paul Ockenden
From the coverage map on Amazon.com it would appear that the device is roaming across several UK networks, so I'm guessing it'll have an AT&T SIM in it.
Hmmm.... Can't help wondering whether it's worth buying one just to (try to) hack the SIM out and use it for super-dooper mobile broadband, with access to any network....
By PaulOckenden on 7 Oct 2009
cheysuli said it all really
I shan't be getting worked up about this launch.
By Lacrobat on 7 Oct 2009
The last book I bought was already wireless. And it didn't need recharging. Unless you need to carry a large library around I can't see the point.
By c6ten on 7 Oct 2009
Shouldn't have bothered
Not being funny, but Amazon shouldn't have even bothered releasing the Kindle over here if this is their idea of a UK launch.
No power cord, import duties... waste of time, effort and money.
No thanks
By hjlupton on 7 Oct 2009
Waste of money . . .
Ditto
By zeevro on 7 Oct 2009
As necessary a a bullet in the head.
Ditto
And we wonder why society is up to its eyeballs in debt when companies keep rolling out these kind of gizmos ... and the environment is so damaged.
By goannahead99 on 8 Oct 2009
US eBooks can be an issue
I have a Sony reader and buy ebooks from US websites.
However some of the publishers have suddenly recently introduced restrictions on international buyers.
I now can't buy books from some publishers that I could buy from before because my credit card is registered in the UK.
So will UK Kindle users get the same restrictions?
By janineo on 8 Oct 2009
US eBooks can be an issue
I have a Sony reader and buy ebooks from US websites.
However some of the publishers have suddenly recently introduced restrictions on international buyers.
I now can't buy books from some publishers that I could buy from before because my credit card is registered in the UK.
So will UK Kindle users get the same restrictions?
By janineo on 8 Oct 2009
Avoiding their legal obligations.
The reason you have to import it from the US is because Amazon can't be bothered to obey British laws, like having a proper PSU.
They just don't care.
By dennis on 8 Oct 2009
I agree that their hardware offering isn't exactly compelling, but as i've learned from trying to buy books for reading on an iphone, the most important consideration for a ebook reader for me is whether I can find a good variety of books I actually want to read. compare waterstones.com "We have over 15,000 eBooks for you to download" with amazon.com kindle books "Showing 1 - 12 of 285,510 Results". That's why I, for one, am glad to see amazon in the uk ebooks market.
By philgriffiths1 on 8 Oct 2009
US eBooks can be an issue
I have a Sony reader and buy ebooks from US websites.
However some of the publishers have suddenly recently introduced restrictions on international buyers.
I now can't buy books from some publishers that I could buy from before because my credit card is registered in the UK.
So will UK Kindle users get the same restrictions?
By janineo on 8 Oct 2009
ebooks
I think that ebooks will be famous for new generation only. Because the real book readers are addictive to page changings. If the come up with new ebook where you can change pages like real book then that can be famous. The best upcoming ebook i think is this one http://www.domesticutilities.com/book.htm
In this century ebooks will bring many new poets and articles writers and the famous poets and writers names will disappear
By mzm4u on 11 Oct 2009
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