As of 19-Oct-09, an international version of the Kindle 2 will be available for $279 - $20 more than the U.S.-only Kindle 2 - plus shipping and duties (it's shipped from the United States). So readers in 100 countries will be able to purchase English-language books, as well as various magazines and newspapers, for display on the Kindle. The larger Kindle DX, which can display PDFs, has no international version as yet, although Amazon has promised such a device sometime in 2010.

At the moment, those books, magazines, and newspapers must be purchased from the U.S. Amazon store, but this is an improvement; until now, you had to have a U.S. account and address even to use Amazon's Kindle app on the iPhone and iPod touch. Now, users of those devices who are outside the United States have access to Kindle ebooks as well, but at a higher price.

TidBITS author Kirk McElhearn (living in France) does a detailed analysis of the international Kindle version and the conditions. My conclusion, the Amazon Kindle seems to be not a good deal at the moment for people living outside the U.S.

Amazon Kindle's availability in Germany and Austria is announced. You can pre-order it for 279 USD (approx. 199 EUR) in the Amazon store. The international version will be released on October, 19th. But be aware due to the fact that the Kindle is shipped from the USA, you maybe have to pay customs duties, import taxes and other fees. Additionally you'll need an adapter for the U.S. power connector (supports 110-240 V). But you can charge the battery over USB, too. Please read Amazon's country information pages carefully before you order.

The international roaming costs for Whispernet are 1.99 USD per book, 4.99 USD per week for subscriptions or 0.99 USD per megabyte for syncing personal documents (DOC, PDF ...) via AT&T roaming service. You can find an U.S. and worldwide coverage map here.

I'm really tempted to pre-order one, but still hoping that Apple will release an iPhone-OS or MacOS tablet device in the near future. Depending on overlapping features it will make a Kindle obsolete for me. At the moment my iPhone is an acceptable substitute except for battery life.

But think about the potentials and opportunities for schools, universities and other teaching & learning environments, light-weight travelling, sustainability & co2-emission savings, economies of scale effects in book sales, print industry, logistics ... whether provided trough the Amazon or iTunes* store (* regarding an Apple device). There are much more impacts into the real world, if e-books sales will increase, so I'm bullish in both - tablet devices and the use of e-books.