Kindle International - Free 2-day shipping for Xmas - Update2

Amazon announced today "FREE Two-Day expedited shipping offer for Kindle ... in time for delivery by Christmas Eve."

  This is only for shipment within the continental U.S. though and is for orders between now and December 22, in order for delivery by December 24.

The larger Kindle DX does not ship, however, for 4 to 6 weeks at this point.  It's been popular with those who need to read PDFs for business or who are in college and for better (larger) display of web pages. See differences at my Kindle photo pages and a list of questions you should ask yourself if not sure whether to get a Kindle Int'l or the Kindle DX.  In the meantime I suspect the DX Int'l might be released in a few weeks, but I don't know.  They always have the 30-day refund policy with no re-stocking charge (which is rare).

Amazon also announced that more people bought Kindles in the first half of December than in any full previous month.  So many different e-readers were announced for release this year, which indicated other companies recognized the demand for e-readers, that I think those increased e-reader interest even more while the vendors were unable to release their own new readers in sufficient quantities (or condition) in time for Christmas.

  PaidContent's Staci D. Kramer confirms that the iRex 8" DR800SG won't be ready after all due to iRex having "experienced unexpected delays” and there is no new delivery-date yet.

  I do think a lot of thought went into the features the Kindle has and which the other e-readers don't and won't have:

. a free 24/7 web browser for mobile-unit optimized websites
(most areas outside the U.S., except for Japan, Hong Kong, and Mexico, get only Wikipedia but plans are to include them later, Amazon has said)

. Read-to-me (text-to-speech) feature for most books and all personal + business documents and subscriptions for times anyone wants that (small stereo speakers or headphones can be used)

. an inline-dictionary that shows a bottom-line summary definition of the word your cursor is on

. Search of a book with several results present in 6 rows with context shown ...

. Searches of a word/phrase with clickable options to Google the word/phrase in countries with webbrowser generally enabled -- or, if not, to be presented the current Wikipedia page for that information, live, and for free in countries with Kindle and its wireless delivery access for books.

. a private webpage for Kindle owners, showing, on one page, annotations for any of their books if they have authorized Amazon to back up their annotations

There are more differences, but these are the outstanding ones, in addition to an interface that minimizes the number of steps you have to thumb through, with more direct access to your reading.
  I think that other companies did find it's not that easy to do well.

An available pocketable alternative for less but with no wireless and no study features
  The Sony Pocket Reader, at $189 At Amazon, is a good pocketable reader that has no wireless, and none of the study features mentioned (dictionary, search, annotations), but if one wants a basic pocket reader and limited storage, and doesn't care about the rest, it's a good alternative. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

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(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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