Hasta La Gadget!

We can’t say that we never saw this day coming, but we definitely didn’t it see it coming today. After months of forcing us to twiddle our thumbs (and a good bit of pressure from other e-reader players), Amazon has finally taken the Kindle international. Aside from being able to wirelessly download content in over 100 countries and territories, the 6-inch device is the same as it ever was. The $279 price tag on the Kindle U.S. & International Wireless now represents a $20 premium over the standard Kindle, which simultaneously fell from $299 to $259 in price and picked up a new label (“Kindle U.S. Wireless”). The extra Jackson is evidently there to cover the inevitable roaming charges that’ll occur when downloading new content overseas, but given AT&T’s extensive global roaming footprint (yeah, the global reader is tied to AT&T, not Sprint), you should be covered in most every nation fit to visit. Feel free to place your pre-order now, and get ready for a new life as a globetrotting digital bookworm come October 19th.

Update: Just saw this in the fine print: “When traveling abroad, you can download books wirelessly from the Kindle Store or your Archived Items for a fee of $1.99.”

[Thanks, Tom]

Read – Kindle goes international
Read – US Kindle falls to $259

Filed under: Displays, Handhelds

International Kindle ships October 19 to over 100 countries for $279, ‘US’ edition falls to $259 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon might have been extremely contrite about remotely deleting 1984 from Kindles, but a Jeff Bezos apology and an offer to restore the book doesn’t necessarily add up to a meaningful change in policy. As part of the settlement with that student who sued over the 1984 situation, Amazon’s had to clarify its remote-deletion guidelines, and they’re pretty much the same as ever: they’ll hit the kill switch if you ask for a refund or if your credit card is declined, if a judge orders them to, or if they need to protect the Kindle or the network from malware. Sounds simple, right?

Well, sort of — saying they’ll delete content at the behest of judicial or regulatory decree pretty much leaves the door open to exactly the same situation as the 1984 debacle, just a couple procedural steps down the line and with less blame placed on Amazon. If you’ll recall, 1984 was deleted after the publisher was sued for not having the proper rights, and Amazon took the proactive step of deleting the content — and although Amazon won’t do that on its own anymore, all it takes now is one strongly-worded motion before a sympathetic judge and we’re back at square one. That’s pretty troubling — no judge can order a physical bookseller to come into your house and retrieve a book they’ve sold you, and saying things are different for the Kindle raises some interesting questions about what Amazon thinks “ownership” means. We’ll see how this one plays out in practice, though — we’re hoping Amazon never has to pull that switch again.

Filed under: Handhelds

Amazon clarifies Kindle book-deletion policy, can still delete books originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We admire Bookeen‘s resilience here, we really do. After last hearing about this e-book reader in May, we sort of assumed it had just given up on the matter. After all, it’s WiFi-less and yet still as pricey as many of its rivals. That said, the Cybook Opus certainly looks different than most every other reader out there, so surely that counts for something. We’re not saying it counts for $280, but if you are, you’re approximately 1.389 clicks away from having one shipped to your domicile.

[Via GizmoScene]

Filed under: Displays, Handhelds

Bookeen now shipping $280 Cybook Opus e-reader originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You’ve just got to admire an outfit like Netronix. Hardly anyone this side of Asia has heard of ’em, and with outfits like Amazon, Sony, Hearst and ASUS doing their darnedest to corner to rapidly expanding e-reader market, you know it has an uphill climb just to get some respect. That said, we’re somewhat intrigued by what’s on deck for Q1 2010; just a few months after its EB-600 and EB-500 readers were spotted at Computex, the company itself has confessed to having an expansive EB900 in the works. As with the Kindle DX, this bugger is destined to boast a 9.7-inch e-ink display, and you’ll also find a 600MHz processor, WinCE 6.0-based operating system, touch support, a handwriting mode, built-in WiFi / Bluetooth / 3G WWAN and a USB socket for connecting to one’s PC. The minuscule snapshot you see there to the right is all we’ve got to go by as far as images are concerned, but you can rest assured we’ll be keeping an ear to the ground for more.

[Thanks, Tom]

Filed under: Displays, Handhelds

Netronix sneaking 9.7-inch display, hopes and dreams into forthcoming EB900 e-reader originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Sep 2009 07:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We can’t fault iRiver for striving to beat Kindle at its game, but to be Kindle is a different story altogether. A Korea-based MobileRead forum member posted a trio of pics that apparently show off the company’s up e-book reader, aptly titled the Story. Here’s the scoop as “dasony” tells it: the talented Mr. Ripley here sports a 6-inch screen, physical QWERTY keys, up to 32GB expandable memory, 9,000 page turns (per charge, we presume), a comic viewer, and support for PDF, EPUB, and a number of word / document files. Its local affiliation includes book store chain Kyobo and pre-orders will launch September 16th for around 350,000 to 400,000 KRW, or $282 to $322 in US currencies. Apparently iRiver’s looking to expand it to other countries and is in talk with US and Russian retailers, although with that price, it’s gonna have to pull out some surprise features and dark magick to compete with what Sony and Amazon are dealing. More pics of the book and its not-quite-svelte case in the gallery below.

[Via Engadget German]

Filed under: Handhelds

Alleged iRiver Story e-reader pics exemplify imitation as the sincerest form of flattery originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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