No Kindle Fire (or Kindle Touch) for Blighty, $79 = £89

+Lewis Curdie Sep. 29, 2011 at 09:09 More articles by Lewis Curdie

No Kindle Fire (or Kindle Touch) for Blighty, = £89 “Booooooooo!” is the noise running through my head right now as I contemplate Amazon’s new wares. “Booooooooo!”

In a year that has also seen us deprived of the MeeGo-running Nokia N9, it seems that the UK won’t be seeing the Amazon Kindle Fire (or Kindle Touch) either. Sucks to be us, huh?

I spoke to Amazon’s PR company immediately after the New York announcement last night, but strangely enough they weren’t able to tell me anything. You would think a company as big as Amazon – with an announcement of that calibre – would have its house in order.

Instead, I was put on a mailing list for an Amazon UK press release, a press release I’m still waiting for now as it happens.

However, in the meantime, an Amazon UK spokesperson has told Pocket-lint: “Today, Kindle Fire and Kindle Touch are available only in the US,” so it ain’t sounding too good.

As an added slap in the face, the new $79 Kindle will cost us not the equivalent £50.50. Nope, over here it’ll cost us £89.

Furg you, Amazon. I thought we were friends.

The new Kindle is actually $109. The $79 Kindle is ad-supported and won't be released over here

Linky.

Last edited by blizzard7, Sep. 29, 2011 at 09:16

How unfair are you feeling this morning, Lewis?

Firstly, the $79 Kindle is Ad Supported, the non-ad supported version that we're actually getting here in the UK, which costs $109 (approx £69), in the US. If you then stick the UK's 20% VAT on the £69 price tag it comes to around £84, sounding more reasonable yet? So in the end, we're paying a fiver more than our transatlantic cousins, wow, what a rip off...

On the other hand, I agree with you about the Kindle Fire and Kindle Touch, I want those over here, asap, especially the Fire, the Touch doesn't really interest me that much.

Last edited by matt101101, Sep. 29, 2011 at 09:25

The old Kindles are also a good chunk more expensive in Europe than in the USofA. It's called tax'n'sh*t in business school.

Tax'n'sh*t....not what they called it when I was at university , this crazy modern world .

On a general note, US prices are quoted pre-sales tax, which varies state to state, UK prices are quoted post-VAT, which is standard (20%), throughout the UK. The Americans' sales tax is usually way less than 20%, which is why things seem cheaper over there.

Last edited by matt101101, Sep. 29, 2011 at 09:23

Clearly that was written (a) the second I woke up, (b) prior to coffee, and (c) prior to medication. I'm ok now. Thanks guys.

@matt101101
Yeah the touch doesn't interest me one bit either. I don't want fingerprints on my screen and I can't imagine it being an exciting experience on an e-Ink display. For £89, the normal Kindle is an absolute bargain and yes it may have less battery life and no keyboard, but the fact it's a LOT smaller really makes me crave it.

Also agree with both you guys on the pricing situation. A lot of people whine about rip-off Britain, but the fact is there are many things where we get better deals than our EU buddies. Heck, think about Xbox 360 and PS3 games. They retail for $60 in the US, but in the UK it's not a surprise if you find it for £35 at launch day, when really we should be paying about £45!

P.S. We love you really Mr. Curdie

Last edited by blizzard7, Sep. 29, 2011 at 09:30

Blizzard, yeah fingerprints all over my "book", would p*ss me right off. The e-ink display on the original kindle wouldn't lend itself well to a touchscreen, so I doubt this new one will. I think the touch Kindle may become the unloved middle child, in the Kindle range, at Christmas. I really want a Fire and I know my mum wants the new, lighter Kindle, her only complaint with the original is it's to heavy to hold one handed for a long time.

It annoys me when people rant about rip off Britain, it's really not that bad. It's not the big companies that make us pay more, it's Mr. Cameron and Co. They're the ones that decided to hike VAT up to 20%, therefore forcing companies to charge more, for the same stuff. Exactly, launch day games are a perfect example, I paid £17.99, to preorder Battlefield 3 at the weekend...I mean, that's unbelievable value, I can play it for a month and still sell it on for more, rip off Britain my ar*e.

Oh and Lewis, we do love you really, but geeks like their numbers

matt,
there are touch eInk devices. They work with IR. The frame around the screen creates a IR-grid. Your pinkies disturb the grid and the rest is...

The biggest disappointment I had was that the touch 3G wasnt running Android (like the Nook touch).

A small tablet that you can take anywhere, read in direct sunlight, works with a lot of Android apps (check out how the Nook touch mods are going at XDA Devs), free 3G, huge battery life of several days and costs only £120 or so, sounds perfect to me!

@JanSt
I haven't had experience with them but I take it that:
a) It's not what's being used on Kindle Touch judging by the video.
b) It's not as accurate as a regular touch-screen.
c) I like cakes.
d) Fingerprints will still be inevitable.

@matt101101
100% agree. People defending 20% VAT wind me up as much as people who say, "Rip-off Britain".
"Everything only costs a few pennies more you cheapskate", they cry. Well I've got news for you. When VAT went up I was instantly down about £3 a month on my mobile phone contract and media services. Go to fill up the car, yup petrol is 3p a litre more. Go to buy some chocolate digestives, yup they've gone up. But oh wait, chocolate chip cookies, yeah they're VAT free. What arbitrary crap is that? Bringing it back to Kindle, eBooks incur a lovely 20% VAT. So I must've saved a ton of trees and lots in transportation costs both personal and commercial and this is how the government repays me? Thanks guys!

@Stelph
Several days isn't huge battery life when you're talking about eReaders. The Nook is awesome, but I'd rather an great eReader and a butt-kicking tablet than something which tries to be everything.

Last edited by blizzard7, Sep. 29, 2011 at 10:43

As pointed out in another Kindle article, the Android Amazon Marketplace hasn't launched anywhere else besides the US yet, they aren't going to launch a tablet in a market that they haven't got the support for yet.

It's a crying shame but I'm more than happy to wait it out for this one.

Blizzard, if used just as an ereader, the Nook Color actually lasts reaaaaaally long. On the other hand: listen to audiobooks on a Kindle and see what happens.

That's fair enough. I'd say as a minimum, I'd want an eReader to last 2 weeks (i.e. the length of a good holiday). Like I said in another thread, I've never ever used my Kindle for audiobooks, because I prefer reading a book. It's arguably an important feature for those who are visually-impaired though.

I like the Kindle's eInkies, to be honest. As you said, the Nook and now the Fire try to be all sorts of things (see the Angry Bird icon prominently displayed)...The Nook Color is excellent as an eReader, and it sucks at pretty much everything else.

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