Amazon's Kindle in the UK

 

The blogs and news are all chattering away about Kindle, which is the new hand held ebook reader that Amazon are offering. You can see information about it on their home page for example. Alternatively, read about it in Newsweek or read about it in the library/information weblogs here and here and here or over here. However, don't expect to go to the UK Amazon site and find anything on it, oh no. Doesn't exist. I ran a quick search and the first thing that pops up is some other product entirely. OK, so maybe they're not selling it in the UK yet, maybe they never intend to, but they must expect people to be interested. After all, global economy, global interests, global company and all that jazz - but apparently not at Amazon.

Comments

[Eolake Stobblehouse]

I agree. Even a page saying "we expect the Kindle to become available in the UK sometime in the next decade" would be better than that stupid vacuum. Barely.

[David Bradley]

I reckon this is an international trade laws issue or perhaps just a pre-Xmas marketing ploy...

db

[Kate]

I was really excited by this and then by turns gutted at the attitude of Amazon to a UK release. Given that the UK population is greater than New York State and California combined this is a real snub. Wrote to Amazon to complain then closed my account in protest. Does mean I will need to search around a bit for other online suppliers but that is easy nowadays. Abe books are a pretty good alternative. Although their site could be improved.
Harrumph.

[Dean]

The Kindle works with wireless, so it could mean that the UK hasn't been mentioned because it doesn't work in the UK

[newmo]

Usually when this happens I double check my typing - I thought I had discovered a google conspiracy against the ASUS Eee the other day until I realised I'd mispelt it (Eeee I think).

A selling point for the US is EV-DO which is half irrelevany here surely - our 3g networks are faster aren't they and its not so easy to swap out those aspects of the machine.
Still they should have put something on their site...crazy.

[Eila]

Sounds as though you've found the same disappointment as I did, after a good twenty minutes of "this is SO cool!".

It's down to Amazon's 'Whispernet', which currently only covers the US.
Link: http://www.showmycoverage.com/mycoverage.jsp?id=A921ZON

I suppose these things take time to develop...

[Susan]

There is a web link showing the kindle coverage area, and this is apparently limited to the US, so it does appear to be a connection issue. Darn!