If you want the equivalent of the UK version (ie. not ad supported) it is $109. Still $30 cheaper.-Carol Haynes (October 03, 2011, 02:52 AM)
Amazon US ads taxes at checkout-Carol Haynes (October 03, 2011, 02:52 AM)
Items sold by Amazon.com LLC, or its subsidiaries, and shipped to destinations in the states of Kansas, Kentucky, New York, North Dakota, or Washington are subject to tax.
VAT=20%
Does that do most of it?-Dormouse (October 03, 2011, 03:19 AM)
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)
Kindle Fire has a radical new web browser called Amazon Silk. When you use Silk – without thinking about it or doing anything explicit – you’re calling on the raw computational horsepower of Amazon EC2 to accelerate your web browsing.;D
Carol's anger is righteous. It's 2011 and the planet, countries, currency, and economies are more connected than ever in history. Virtually every gadget is made in China, so there's no good reason for it to cost more, not even £12 or £25. I order things from the UK all the time and I get the VAT removed at checkout. It's silly.-zridling (October 03, 2011, 12:21 PM)
which means that Amazon will be scanning ALL of a user's web browsing, not just purchases at Amazon, for data mining purposes.-xtabber (October 03, 2011, 01:55 PM)
kindle is the best e-book reader and wonderful investment for avid readers (holds up to 3500 books), The device is small and light. With kindle we can read many book only with one device. regularry, kindle have three choise, ie kindle wifi, kindle wifi + 3g and kindle DX.
I find it funny all this outrage at U. S. companies doing this (not saying it's not wrong, just read on). Meanwhile it happens to U. S. companies and people just as frequently, if not moreso. The key here is the U. S. computer market provides much of the innovation and many of the largest companies are here. However, in the electronic entertainment industry (consoles, TV's, Stereo's, etc.), Japan is probably the single biggest player with the likes of Sony, Onkyo, et. al. These are all almost double the price in the U. S. over Europe despite the VAT taxes etc. Note, that is EUROPE, not Japan! Likewise, East Asian auto manufacturers trounce American auto manufacturers because they can produce them so much cheaper (for a ton of reasons). Do they lower the prices in the U. S. because of this? Well, yes, to just below their American competition. They don't price it based on a percentage profit, they price it based on what they can get in that area. I understand the outrage, but lets direct it all all industries and countries practicing this, not just the U. S. computer industry.-steeladept (October 09, 2011, 07:53 AM)
in Amazon's defense, I will say that they at least don't switch prices You'd be surprised how many sites display different prices on the same item when they know who you are vs. when they don't.-xtabber (October 03, 2011, 01:55 PM)
Does it have a backlight? I hate to have a light on for my night reading sessions.-nosh (October 09, 2011, 07:20 AM)
The biggest problem that I see with all of the new Kindles is that they are locked in to the Silk browser, which means that Amazon will be scanning ALL of a user's web browsing, not just purchases at Amazon, for data mining purposes.-Carol Haynes (October 03, 2011, 09:32 AM)
Letter from Jeff Bezos on amazon front page.Kindle Fire has a radical new web browser called Amazon Silk. When you use Silk – without thinking about it or doing anything explicit – you’re calling on the raw computational horsepower of Amazon EC2 to accelerate your web browsing.;D
I just connected this (http://www.zdnet.com/tb/1-103857) and this (http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=175B2906-1A64-6A71-CE9434A166A30835) with the bolded quote.-mahesh2k (October 03, 2011, 11:22 AM)
I find it funny all this outrage at U. S. companies doing this (not saying it's not wrong, just read on). Meanwhile it happens to U. S. companies and people just as frequently, if not moreso. The key here is the U. S. computer market provides much of the innovation and many of the largest companies are here. However, in the electronic entertainment industry (consoles, TV's, Stereo's, etc.), Japan is probably the single biggest player with the likes of Sony, Onkyo, et. al. These are all almost double the price in the U. S. over Europe despite the VAT taxes etc. Note, that is EUROPE, not Japan! Likewise, East Asian auto manufacturers trounce American auto manufacturers because they can produce them so much cheaper (for a ton of reasons). Do they lower the prices in the U. S. because of this? Well, yes, to just below their American competition. They don't price it based on a percentage profit, they price it based on what they can get in that area. I understand the outrage, but lets direct it all all industries and countries practicing this, not just the U. S. computer industry.-steeladept (October 09, 2011, 07:53 AM)
No kindle comes with a backlight that I know of.
Last summer I spent several hours every night for two weeks reading my kindle with a flashlight in one hand :)
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)
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)
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)