New Zealand misses out on latest Kindle

Amazon is releasing a larger version of its Kindle e-reader, but just like its predecessor, it won’t be available in New Zealand.



The most obvious change in the new Kindle DX is its larger display, which now boasts a 9.7-inch screen in the place of the 6-inch screen built into the original Kindle. Although many companies have been opting to downsize their e-readers, Amazon claims the larger DX makes reading content easier without a significant compromise on mobility.

The DX has longer battery life than the original Kindle, 4GB of memory and includes a text-to-speech function that allows the device to read books to users in audio form.

Amazon said on its website that the device would be released in more than 100 countries on January 19, but no deal had yet been struck to bring it to New Zealand.

“Unfortunately, we are currently unable to ship Kindles to New Zealand,” the Amazon website said.

In October last year, Vodafone said it was in “deep discussions” with Amazon to bring the Kindle to New Zealand. However, no deal has been forthcoming and Vodafone spokesperson Tom Chignell said today that he was not immediately aware of the state of the negotiations.

Amazon said that although the Kindle and the Kindle DX could not be purchased in New Zealand, Kiwis could still read more than 310,000 Kindle books on their PC with a free Kindle for PC application that could be downloaded from the Amazon website.

That application, still in Beta form, would run on Windows 7, Vista and XP, but was not yet available for Mac users, Amazon said.