It might be next year before Australia officially get the Amazon Paperwhite. But, that doesnt stop some places taking advantage of kindle fans by offering the device at a ridiculous mark up.

Amazon selling the Kindle Paperwhite base model (at cost) for $119 US
Readershop.com.au selling the same device for $239 AUD

http://www.readershop.com.au/


Although there are throwing in a DVD with about 30000 ebooks.

Why would people shop here when these things are going on?

Tossers. I bought my previous model Kindle Fire from an Australian dealer on eBay for not much more than the US price earlier this year. Interestingly, Amazon are doing the same for Amazon.co.uk, paperwhite is just under GBP110 - USD60 more than the .com site.

In terms of consumables I buy food, water and petrol in Australia. Everything else I buy from UK/Europe or US (most clothes, books, CDs, DVDs, some electronic, toys etc) via the internet. And such is the grotesque mark-up in Australia that even if that pile of crap Gerry Harvey can buy enough politicians off to scrap the $1000 no-tax on import limit and a tax is imposed, it will STILL be cheaper to buy overseas. I add though that wages are generally higher here, there are fewer deductions that US/UK and food I find generally cheaper so I'm OK there. Our general experience is that we are better off in Australia, but that doesn't stop us searching the market place for the cheapest deal which is rarely in Australia.

The internet is my first port of call for most things now. If I can buy it from overseas, I do. If GST does ever get added to internet purchases, which I doubt will happen, then I will buy even more internationally.

Saying that, prices for some things, like certain items of consumer electronics, are competitive compared to the UK (not a cheap country for many things) and Europe, buy rarely the US.

I wonder if these cheapies will make it over here?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012...er-txtr-beagle

Just ordered a paperwhite & case.
$180 (case is 40 of that).

From where?

Here's a concrete example of the difference:

In Australia -

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Brand-New...item43af352bc1


.... and the identical item in the USA -

http://www.amazon.com/Braun-Series-P...ds=braun+790cc

One of those companies that buys in the US for you and ships it over.

I actually ordered it earlier in the week, so could be up to 2/3 weeks to get here.

You pay 3c in the dollar worse on the current exchange rate (it's where they make their profit).

Yeah I saw some places doing that so thought about it. Then I heard Amazon were restricting to 2 or 3 per customer which meant these places couldn't take anymore orders. Don't know how true it is.

Think they are restricting the no-ads versions.

But i'm sure that can be fixed with a jailbreak.

The status of my order on Saturday was 'shipped in the US'.

Will let you know how I get on.

last night my wife hinted that she would like a Kindle for Christmas (thanks for telling me now, I could have ordered one from the US weeks ago ). There are loads of different models and I don't know much about them as I use a Nexus 7 as an ereader.

Is the keyboard useful?
Can the 3G only be used for downloading books?
Is 3G worth the extra cost?

The 3G used to be more useful, but they have recently limited to the downloading of books. Given the level of wifi around, I'd be inclined to forget it. Similarly with keyboard.

In fact, the news says that sales of eInk eBook readers are tailing away significantly, meaning you might find firesales in the new year as everything shifts tabletwise very fast.

Cool, I might wait. The Nexus 7 is awesome btw - $246 for the 32Gb on a Kogan pricematch at Officeworks. What a bargain for what it is. 32Gb ipad mini is $200 more.

Tried playing with it and all the things you can do with it?

We've got one for mother for Xmas on the basis there's less to screw up than with a laptop.