From 19th October Brits will be able to buy it from Amazon’s US Store and then import it to the UK. The downside of this is that any purchasers will have to pay import tax which should bump up the cost of the ereader to around £200.

The Amazon Kindle is finally set to land in the UK. Word is out that the online book giant is in advanced negotiations with a mobile operator and is working at full speed to ensure its eBook reader can hit our shores in time for Christmas. Qualcomm will take care of the manufacture of the Kindle in the UK as well as secure the deal with an unspecified operator (please not O2) which should mean 3G connectivity as well as Wi-Fi and PC side-loading for access to a wealth of books, newspapers and magazines. Amazon is said to have held talks with Orange, Vodafone and 3 in the past but all broke down. There also seems to be a belief among some of the operators that they can produce a reader of their own in light of their control of connectivity, relationship with hardware manufacturers and customer base but Amazon argues that it’s their access to the publishers will be key. The trouble is that theses are just the kinds of problems that will cause talks to break down again and, ultimately, it could be the consumer that ends up with the raw deal. There’s no doubt that there’s plenty of good things about the Kindle and lots of other eBook readers but will it really be worth paying the subscription price as set by an exclusive operator just for the access e-ink newspapers and magazines? (via Mobile Today)

Looks like Microsft may well have a hit on its hands in Windows 7. In just eight hours, Windows 7 pre-orders outpaced the total number of pre-orders for Vista on Amazon UK. Vista was available for pre-order for a full 17 weeks, so this is something of an accomplishment for Microsoft.

On sale October 22, Windows 7… how do I phrase this? The fact that it’s not Vista is reason enough to consider buying it, especially it you’re clunking along on Windows XP. (To think that people, myself included, prefer the nearly eight-year-old Windows XP to Vista says something about the quality of Vista. But let’s not beat that dead horse, for the zillion time.)

IDC analysts predict about 170 million copies of Windows 7 will be floating around Europe by the next of next year. How many of those installs will you be responsible for?

Of course, not that any of this matters. Once Google Chrome OS comes out, we’ll all be like, “Yuck, who stores their presentations on their hard drive? How 2008 of you!” /eye_roll

Win 7 News