Amazon kindle touch to launch in UK

Amazon declined, however, to give any details on when the Kindle Fire would launch in the UK. The company’s colour, touchscreen Kindle, has sold well in the United States by undercutting Apple’s iPad. Amazon did not deny, however, that UK users may in fact have to wait for a new version of the Kindle Fire, rather than expect to see a belated launch for the current product. The Kindle Touch introduces a touchscreen to Amazon’s Kindle range for the first time, adding a touch-sensitive layer to the familiar e-ink black and white screen. It will sell for £109, compared to £89 for the standard Kindle. A version with 3G mobile access, allowing free downloading of books across the world, will retail at £169. Both models are available for pre-order now and will ship at the end of April. The Touch is already available in America. Amazon also announced that there are now over a million Kindle books, as well as a further million copyright-free electronic books available to all e-readers. The company said Kindle owners buy at least three times as many books as those who read only paper versions. Since its introduction, the Kindle has been the top-selling product across the entire Amazon site. The new Touch model can hold up to 3,000 books and claims a two-month battery life based on a half-hour’s use per day. It is also the first to add Amazon’s ‘X-ray’ feature, which allows users to see key themes on any given page and compare them to major themes within the book, as well as linking to Wikipedia. The Kindle’s 6" screen size is unchanged, and the Touch weighs 213g, while the Touch 3G is 220g. Both feature a touchscreen that is designed to be used with just one hand to turn pages, and Amazon’s ‘Whispersync’, which synchronises content across different devices using the Kindle software.