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The All New Kindle - ripoff!

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Dormouse:
Someone pointed out to me that the UK version included taxes and Amazon US ads taxes at checkout - but even so the state with the highest sales tax is California at 8.25% so even at the most expensive in the US it costs $118, still $21 cheaper than the UK market (and over $100 cheaper than SA).
-Carol Haynes (October 03, 2011, 02:52 AM)
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That was the point of my previous post - the UK VAT is included BUT even taking that into account AND adding Californian Sales Tax (which is near double most states, and quite a few are zero rated) the UK version is still $21 more than the US version.

I don't see how shipping or import/export duty would have much bearing - the devices are probably all made in the far east and shipped directly to the sales area. Even if it was shipped to the UK from the US the sort of bulk Amazon ship and the margins that they can acheive with shippers would not amount to $21 per unit. Plus if they are exporting product they will be able to recoup the import duties.
-Carol Haynes (October 03, 2011, 09:32 AM)
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I don't understand where you get a $21 difference. Take the VAT off the £89 and you get £74 which works out at about $115. $6 difference only. All figures approx. I've no idea whether there are differences in the import/excise duties into the US & Europe, but that price difference is so much smaller than we usually see and disappears if the £ goes down to $1.48.

rxantos:
At the same time, Amazon is hobbling the browser in the new 3G Kindles Touch: now you can only use it for browsing the Amazon store and Wikipedia. Not that the browser for useful for much of anything else,  but now it's officially locked out of the rest of the web in 3G mode.
-tranglos (October 09, 2011, 11:10 AM)
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Good thing I got my kindle before this. Sometimes I use it to check my emails.

Carol Haynes:
That's truly ridiculous - but maybe they can't be accused of spying if they hobble the device to their own store (which they are entitled to monitor your activity).

Alternatively they may have realised that their servers are unlikely to keep pace with the surfing demands of users - how much space would that require as Kindle adoption grows?

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