International Kindle will cost £217 to import

7 October 2009 9:29 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Following the news from Amazon that it is to offer an "International Edition" of the Amazon Kindle in 200 countries, Amazon's UK homepage is promoting the pre-order of the device, due to launch 19 October, with a "letter" from the founder of the etail site, Jeff Bezos.

At the moment the Kindle will be sold on an import basis to customers in the UK from Amazon.com. The price for the device is $279, and when import fees and shipping is added the total comes to $344.98, which works out at £216.85 at today's rates.

This compares favourably with Sony's rival Reader offerings purely on a price basis. The latest Readers to hit the UK are priced at around £250 for the comparable 6-inch version and £190 for the budget 5-incher.

It seems at present content will also have to be bought in dollars. In Bezos' homepage letter, he reveals a "UK-centric Kindle experience" is planned for the future, "enabling you to purchase Kindle and Kindle books in sterling from our Amazon.co.uk site", but for now purchases will be in US currency.

Full tags

Gadgets, Kindle, Amazon, ebooks, eBook readers