The e-book readers are now selling in the country farthest to the east

Oct 24, 2012 08:09 GMT  ·  By

For all the fame they gained, the Kindle-series devices from Amazon had a pretty limited availability for a while, but customers from Europe and, now, Japan can buy them too.

The availability in Europe is not a new thing, but the existence of a Kindle Fire and Paperwhite supply in Japan most definitely is.

Unfortunately, actual deliveries won't begin until the middle of November.

Pre-orders can already be made though. The cheapest Paperwhite is rated at ¥8,480 ($106 / 85 Euro), while the Kindle Fire is sold for ¥12,800 ($160 / 123 Euro).

The prices are actually low compared to the official US/EU prices ($119 / 129 Euro for the former and $159 / 159 Euro for the latter).

Until shipments begin, customers can buy e-books from the newly opened online bookstore. 50,000 Japanese titles can be found at the moment, but the number should rise, provided the fragmented state of Japan's publishing collective doesn't make things too hard.

On a related note, Amazon Kindle Fire HD 16GB (the tablet) is up for pre-order as well, at ¥15,800 ($198 / 152 Euro, not $199 / 199 Euro).