Only on http://www.amazon.com so far, but the kindle is now a family of kindles. You have the basic kindle - no keyboard, no touchscreen, wifi only for $79 ($79!), then the kindle touch - no keyboard but with a touchscreen, $99/$149 for 3G, The kindle keyboard which is the old Kindle rebadged for $99/$149 and the Kindle Fire - which is actually a 7" tablet running Amazon's fork of Android for $199 ($199!)

Serious gadget lust over some of those...

The technology behind the Silk browser on Kindle Fire sounds really good. Can't wait to see how it works in practise.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4890/amaz ... dle-tablet

I wonder how long we'll have to wait for a 3G version of the Fire available in Europe. I'm seriously looking forward to that if it comes at a sensible price; primarily for use in France away from any WiFi.

Well if you are hoping to get free 3G on Fire I am pretty sure you will be disappointed. I don't it will ever happen, maybe except for delivery of your purchases (books, periodicals) but you can forget about browsing the web etc...

I'm hoping it might be "free" for Amazon Prime members. They are offering some fantastic sounding packages on there including streaming films.



So what does that "service" involve? Obviously they want us to buy content - that's where their profits are. That will be easier if I can get on-line wherever I am.

Of course you're right to be pessimistic about "free 3G". The only reason it's on the old Kindle is because it's such a poor experience that no one is going to download much. If you could watch Youtube on it, then there's absolutely no way that could be free.

However, it wouldn't cost much to allow simple access to a few prime websites such as Yahoo! Mail and Wikipedia. I'm not sure where Yahoo's business allegiances lay, but being the prime internet content provider to the Kindle would be a huge deal. If not them, then someone else.

But streaming video is for US only, you can't get in over here (for now at least).

Oh I'm only too aware of that, but all their services start off over there.

I'm not holding my breath - just hoping for cool stuff to arrive over here sometime before I die

Just been to the Amazon site and they have launched the non-touch model for £89 but no sign of the touch model.

Just seen the OP again.

How can they convert $79USD into £89GBP?!?!

They are not the same models.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/why- ... e-uk/15068

Ah, I stand corrected

It did sound a little odd to be charging nearly double the price for the same item.

You can browse the web now on a Standard 3G kindle, I think. Only in black & white, obviously. Plus the Kindle Fire will have specialised browser that uses Amazon's wacky cacheing technology to minimise the amount of data transferred. Given the way the browser works, they could actually give you a limited amount of browser time thrown in each month for free but charge you after that.

I'm kind of interested in how the Fire will work. It's patently not a full Android tablet. It will have the Amazon android store but there's no mention of Google marketplace. I think there's a fair chance that, unless you re-flash it, the only place you'll be able to get apps from will be the Amazon store and they'll curate it to make sure no apps get in that demand a lot of network traffic, only ones that use the cacheing service they're implementing. I think people planning to buy a Fire to get an ultra-cheap Android tablet may find themselves rather hamstrung.

I don't understand why amazon should care how much traffic people use. It is wifi only so people won't care either...

Kindle Fire is being sold at loss, costs $210 to make.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/30 ... materials/

It sounds very bad and scary, to be honest. The Amazon Cloud basically performs a "man-in-the-middle" attack on every secure website you visit!

Also, don't forget, that the US price excludes sales tax, so you need to add 20% to the US price to compare it, unless you are buying it for a company.


They use a US SIM, I believe, and you don't pay for the monthly costs of the SIM, it is "included" in the purchase price of books, even if you are abroad and download a book, so they take a bath if you surf a lot on it, which isn't a problem on the Kindle, because most people wouldn't and the rest only as an emergency measure. On a fast tablet with a "proper" display, it is a totally different kettle of fish.


It doesn't run standard Android, so it won't get Google's approval to use the Google Market. That said, this is a subsidised device, they are going to make their money from sales of Amazon goods, including apps, so they won't want the GM on the Fire...

It is also using Android 2.2, which is a dated version. I hope they have at least included all the security fixes in their fork of the project. It will be interesting, whether they will ever update it to 2.3 or better still Android 4, which is designed for Tablets (Android 3 is closed source and not available to third parties, like Amazon, only close partners).

The caching service can be disabled, thankfully.