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Amazon Kindle Up Close and in Hong Kong
On Monday you can get a Kindle in Hong Kong with local 3G downloads.
On his way back to the U.S. via Tokyo, Charlie Tritschler – the Director of Product Management and Interaction Design for Lab126 (the Amazon.com company behind the Amazon Kindle) – stopped by Hong Kong to talk to us about the immensely popular Kindle eBook device. The digital book reader is now making its international debut (including Hong Kong) for HK$2,175 (US$279).
So, as of this coming Monday, the Kindle 2 will be available (along with 290,000+ English books, magazines and newspapers) in Hong Kong. You need to order it from Amazon.com and use the built-in 3G to download books anytime, anywhere. And with books like Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol at only US$9.95 and 900K in file size, you will find yourself filling your Kindle up quickly.
While there are no Chinese language books available for the time being, one of the most impressive features is its built in dictionary which allows you to instantaneously look up English definitions as well as having the Kindle read to you (good for learning pronunciation) you can define the font size, make notes with the keyboard, the E-Ink reproduction is amazing even on photos and illustrations – have a look at the gallery below; we are very impressed with how it displays full greyscale images – it even plays MP3′s!
You can read all the tech specs here. The question is: is it as good as people say? From what we saw last night (we hope to get a demo to properly play with soon) we can say: “Yes.” It’s definitely a product that does more than you think. The E-Ink technology is powerful, reading a screen in bright light with no loss of contrast is amazing, especially if you are used to reading from LCD screens. The features make it an essential gadget for people learning English and doing research. The device is thin, light and the amount of content you can download is staggering. Most importantly is that you can buy books instantly from the device without having to connect to your PC or Mac and if your Kindle is lost or stolen all the books can download automatically into your new one.
Something to think about though, the International Kindle is US$20 more than the US version, and it will allow websurfing but for some reason not allow you to read blogs (the reasons explained here) and some of the books are actually 20% more when downloading in Hong Kong. The U.S. model has different 3G hardware and won’t work overseas, so the question you want to ask yourself before choosing to buy the U.S. or the International model is how important is downloading content without the use of a PC hook-up to you?
Either way the few missing pieces don’t take away from what is a very powerful device to book lovers, English students and carrying a powerful talking piece when traveling. At the very least you will be the center of envy amongst your Singaporean friends!
We copy and pasted the exact restrictions for Hong Kong from the Amazon Kindle page so you can see the restrictions:
We are excited to now ship Kindle to Hong Kong. Customers in Hong Kong will enjoy:
- Books in Under 60 Seconds: Think of a book and you could be reading it in under a minute
- Free Wireless: Free 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle. No monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots. For non-U.S. customers, there are also no additional charges for wireless delivery in or outside your home country. See Coverage Map. See Wireless Terms and Conditions
- Large Selection: Over 290,000 English-language books to choose from; plus U.S. and international newspapers and magazines
- Low Book Prices: New York Times® Best Sellers and New Releases are $11.99, unless marked otherwise. You’ll also find many books for less – over 100,000 titles are priced under $5.99
Important Product Information for Your Country
- Your international shipment is subject to customs duties, import taxes and other fees levied by the destination country. We will show you these fees upon checkout.
- Kindle ships with a U.S. power adapter and a micro-USB cable for charging your Kindle via a computer USB port. The U.S. power adapter supports voltages between 100V – 240V.
- You can transfer personal documents to your Kindle via USB for free at anytime. Service fees for transferring personal documents via Whispernet are currently $.99 per megabyte.
- Wireless download times can vary based on 3G or EDGE/GPRS coverage, signal strength and file size.
- Kindle books, newspapers, and magazines are currently priced and sold in United States dollars
- Blogs are currently not available for your country
- Kindle includes a 1-year limited warranty. See details
- Use of the Kindle is subject to the Kindle License Agreement and Terms of Use
One last thing to share with you: Watch this Amazon.com video on how Dan Brown’s latest book is printed. Now compare all that with downloading it onto a Kindle.
Truly remarkable!
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FYI The Lost Symbol doesn’t appear to be available for the Kindle in the Asia & Pacific store.
Apart from the limited number of books, all books appear to be $2 more expensive in the Asia Pacific store – a lot more than 20% for cheaper books – even free books in the US store cost about $2 in the Asia Pacific store.
The situation with newspapers is even worse – e.g. subscriptions which cost $9.99/month in the US cost $22.99/month in the Asia Pacific store.
There are some issues with licensing on some of the content that affect the costings and availability that are due to the publisher not Amazon directly.
The key point about the increase in price from the US store is that they are covering all the WhisperNet costs so that its invisible to the user downloading content, but Amazon is putting it back into the cost of the content. Its debatable if that represents a $2 increase. But AT&T who handles the 3G in the US for the Kindle has done all the deals for Amazon internationally.
Why the newspapers are so much different we will look into.
Would like to see if I can download books to the Kindle on my iPhone
Agreed that the extra cost is due to WhisperNet, but if you have a US registered Kindle that you are using outside of the US you don’t need to pay the extra if you download via a computer, whereas non-US customers have to pay all the time.
For newspapers, US Kindle customers abroad have to pay $4.99/week to download all their blog, newspaper and magazine subscriptions if they use whispernet, or they can download from the web for free. If you’re just subscribing to one newspaper then the Asia cost of $22.99 is better than paying the US roaming charges, but as soon as you subscribe to two papers you’ll be paying more than the US even including the roaming charges.
Hi Mike,
Yes, you are correct and we mentioned that in the story.
If you want to have the convenience of downloading a book anywhere in Hong Kong then it’ll be more expensive than the US Kindle. If you want to download to PC and then transfer to Kindle you will definitely have more options as well as reduced prices, but you’ll need to sync with your PC.
So its all a matter of which way you think you want to go. if you’re a traveller you may want the International version, if you are always near your home PC then the U.S. Kindle might be better.
We’re getting a demo unit this week and might hold a demo cocktail for those interested in seeing it up close. Stay tuned to our Twitter for details. @neonpunch
Do you mean that, in Hong Kong, we can buy kindle 2 (US Domestic version) through Amazon web site?
Second question is about the maintenance issue. In case the gadget go bust, where can we turn to for repair?
Third question, can we really enjoy the price discount for purchasing ebook over the net just the same as an American citizen?
Hi Peter Chan,
No, you cannot so you will have to ship to a US address using a friend’s house or else try using OneNow.com’s service.
Repair needs to be sent back to Amazon. No local repair shops for a Kindle.
It seems the price is a bit more expensive for HK users than US users if you check the prices. This is because, we believe Amazon is adding the Whispernet charge on top of the ebook so we have easy download anywhere in Asia.