EDIT November 17th, 2009: A version of the Kindle is now available in Canada. See CBC.
In my last blog post, I said that I could probably order the Kindle 2 from the US, but I may have been mistaken. CTV has a timely article on its site this morning about how Canadians often don’t have access to gadgets and technology available in the US:
CTV: Want the Latest Tech Toys, eh?
So I guess I’ll have to change my number one requirement to “available in Canada.”
Now that there is a Kindle available for the rest of the world outside of the United States, and still not available in Canada. What is up with that? The Kindle will do for reading what TiVo did for watching TV, leave Canadians out in the cold!
I agree! When I saw a headline on Google News about Amazon releasing its Kindle international version to 100 countries, I thought, “Great! Perfect timing.” Then I read the article. Grrr.
For those interested, see:
No Kindle International for Canada
It sounds like our copyright laws and problems getting a deal with our wireless carriers might have something to do with it.
I live in Toronto and have a Kindle 2. It was purchased in US though. The interesting thing is that the network it uses extends into the Toronto area and everything functions normally. You can buy content from Amazon, you just need to set the Kindle’s address to one in the US while the billing address can still be in Canada.
The web browser says that the feature is not available but if you type in a URL bob’s your uncle it works. You can also use free software and to convert pdfs to the Kindle format and transfer them onboard.
Pedro, that’s good to know. I don’t have an address I can use in the US, though, and I’d always worry that Amazon could yank my access to Kindle books if it figured out that I’m using the Kindle in Canada.
I ended up buying a Sony eReader. It handles PDF files out of the box–no conversion necessary. I haven’t used it yet, since I haven’t been on transit much for the past few weeks. As of today, I’m back on the good old TTC, so once I finish the print book I’m reading, I’ll give the eReader a go.