Kindle Launched in Spain for €99, Charger Sold Separately, Later Dropped to €79

Kindle Goes on Sale in Spain for €99, But Charger is Sold Separately

Amazon launched the Kindle in Spain for 99 euros, ten less than the previous price of €109. Some pointed out that the Spanish language menu was already available and the novelty was that it was being sold from Spain. The initial reaction of more than one buyer was surprise, thinking it would be more expensive. The second surprise came upon opening the box. The charger is not included. It costs an additional €9.99.

The math adds up: 99 + 9.99 = almost 109. The same price as before, with new packaging. The cover is also sold separately, although the argument there is different: the screens of these devices are fragile, and those who already own one recommend protecting it from day one.

The €9.99 Charger Many Don't Need

The Kindle charges via USB. Any cable, any mobile adapter, or the computer's own port will work. A generic wall charger can be found online for 0.99 dollars, less than a euro at current exchange rates. The battery lasts a month with normal use. Buying the official charger is not mandatory; it is practically optional. What is worth considering, however, is the cover.

Those who had been trinc it from outside Spain for a while had already done the math: according to one calculation in the thread, bringing it from the United States would cost around €115 including exchange rates, customs, and shipping. Its arrival in the Spanish store was not a gift; it was a long-overdue correction.

What the Kindle Reads and What It Doesn't: epub, PDF, and the System's Lock

The device does not read epub, a drawback noted by several users. The workaround involves Calibre, a free program that converts files to the Kindle format in seconds. With PDFs, the situation is worse: if formatted in A4 size, there is no reflow, zoom is the only tool, and reading more than a paragraph at a time becomes uncomfortable.

Some have gone further and changed the operating system. The Duokan firmware coexists with Amazon's—you choose which one to boot with—it manages PDFs better, crops margins, and allows uploading books via FTP. It does not delete the original system. For the tech-savvy, it's a way out of the walled garden.

1984, Deleted Remotely Without Warning

The incident that continues to weigh heavily is the remote removal of 1984. As recounted in the thread, Amazon deleted the book from its customers' devices remotely and without prior permission, and some add that it also removed personal annotations. The situation has a certain irony: the store enters someone else's device and removes what it had sold.

This is the source of the most repeated argument against the closed model. If a title disappears today, any other could disappear tomorrow. Furthermore, the device records what is read, when, and how much. The hardware is yours; the content, only partially.

The Price Drop to €79 and the €20 Refund

The price did not hold. Within a few weeks, it dropped to €79, and Amazon began refunding the difference to those who had purchased in the preceding days, upon request via chat. One buyer who had paid €89 with a discount ended up paying €69 after a €20 refund.

Customer service left a good impression: replacements for paint loss or defective batteries were processed via chat in under ten minutes without requiring proof. With the Wibook from El Corte Inglés and the Sony PRS-T1 competing in the same market, Amazon was busy removing excuses for those who hesitated.

Ebook Prices in Spain Aren't Dropping

The device is getting cheaper; the books are not. The demand for digital content is highly responsive to price—as demonstrated by the drop in app prices to €0.10—but in Spain, catalogs maintain printed book prices. It is argued that as long as the price does not align with the format, free downloads will continue to gain ground, and a significant part of the publishing sector is slow to adapt to digital.

With the reader at 99 euros and classics available for €0.00 in the catalog—including Don Quixote—the business is not in the device itself. It is in what is read on it. And given the current pricing, a resolution to this issue does not seem imminent.