Oz To Get Kindle

After a bit of a wait, Australia is to finally get the ebook reader that everybody is raving about.

For the first time, the Kindle ebook reader is available to customers around the world. Kindle wirelessly downloads books, magazines, newspapers and personal documents to a high-resolution 6-inch (15.24 cm) electronic ink display that looks and reads like real paper.

Kindle utilises the same 3G wireless technology as advanced cell phones, so you never need to hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot. Readers around the world can pre-order Kindle today for US$279 at www.amazon.com/kindle and it will begin shipping October 19.

“We have millions of customers in countries all over the world who read English-language books,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “Kindle enables these customers to think of a book and download it wirelessly in less than 60 seconds.”

The Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore) offers international customers over 200,000 English-language books, including new releases and New York Times Bestsellers, which are typically priced less than physical editions. Over 1,000 different rights-holders now have books available in the Kindle Store, including leading publishers Atlantic Books, Bloomsbury, Canongate, Faber and Faber, Hachette, Harlequin, HarperCollins, Lonely Planet, Penguin, Profile Books, Quercus, Simon & Schuster and Wiley. 

Over 85 top U.S. and international newspapers and magazines are also available in the Kindle Store for single purchase or subscription.  Many international newspapers are available in the Kindle Store for the first time, including La Stampa (Italy), El País (Spain), El Universal (Mexico), O Globo (Brazil), The Daily Telegraph (UK), joining top papers such as The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, Le Monde (France), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany) and The Washington Post.  Newspaper and magazine subscriptions are auto-delivered wirelessly to Kindle. 

Features include:

• Kindle is pencil thin and lighter than a typical paperback.

• Readers living in or travelling to Kindle’s wireless coverage areas can wirelessly shop at the Kindle Store, download books in less than 60 seconds, automatically receive newspaper and magazine subscriptions, and receive personal documents—all without a PC, Wi-Fi hot spot, or syncing. Customers who are not in the coverage area can quickly transfer content to Kindle over USB.

• Kindle’s 6-inch (15.24 cm) electronic ink display reads like printed words on paper because the screen works using real ink and doesn’t use a backlight, eliminating the eyestrain and glare associated with other electronic displays.

• Kindle’s 2 GB of memory holds up to 1,500 books and Kindle books are automatically backed up by Amazon so customers can re-download titles in their library.

• Read For Weeks On A Single Charge: Kindle’s electronic paper display sips battery power so users can read for over two weeks with wireless turned off and up to four days on a single charge with wireless on.

• With the experimental Text-To-Speech feature, Kindle can read most newspapers, magazines and books out loud.

• Amazon’s “Whispersync” technology automatically syncs customers’ last page read, bookmarks, notes, and highlights across Kindle, Kindle DX, and Kindle compatible devices like Kindle for iPhone.

• Wirelessly send, receive, and read personal documents in a variety of formats such as Microsoft Word and PDF.

• Kindle comes with the New Oxford American Dictionary and over 250,000 definitions that appear instantly at the bottom of the page.

• Kindle lets readers customise their reading preference by providing six different text sizes.

• By using the QWERTY keyboard Kindle users can add annotations to text, as well as highlight and clip key passages and bookmark pages for future use.

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