Amazon on Wednesday announced the Kindle and Kindle Paperwhite have arrived in Canada. The two family of devices support multiple languages, including English and French, the two official ones in the country.
The latest generation Kindle is available for CDN$89 ($89.12). The Kindle Paperwhite with Wi-Fi is available for CDN$139 ($139.12) while the Kindle Paperwhite with 3G and Wi-Fi sells for CDN$199 ($199.28).
Last month, Amazon launched its Kindle Store in Canada, featuring e-books priced in Canadian dollars. While this meant the digital library was available late last year, there were still no devices in sight.
Canadian customers can now also access the Canada Kindle Store, which features 1.5 million Kindle books, directly from their Kindle. It also includes 250,000 exclusive books customers won’t find anywhere else, 35,000 free books, and 50,000 French-language titles. Kindle books can be read on Kindle devices as well as on Android smartphones and tablets, iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch), as well as Windows Phones using the free Kindle apps.
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While it’s nowhere near as big as the American version, Amazon still says its Canadian store offers the largest selection of the most popular books, including the most best sellers from the Globe and Mail and Le Devoir best seller lists, winners of the Giller prize, and a broad selection of works from leading Canadian publishers and authors, such as Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro and Yann Martel.
Earlier this month, Amazon Prime arrived in Canada, further suggesting the company was looking to expand to the country just north. Unfortunately, the announcement was also a perfect example of limitations Canadians know all too well: the Instant Video feature remains US-only.
Until today, Canadians had to order Kindle e-readers via Amazon.com, although Kindle Fire tablets and Kindle Paperwhite models weren’t available for delivery in the country. While the Kindle Fire is still nowhere to be seen, the other two devices are now available on Amazon.ca. The company’s strategy in Canada is still nowhere near what we would like, but it’s certainly a start.
Image credit: Nicolas Raymond
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