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Originally Posted by terencek
I have several Chinese items like this, identical to the original and shamelessly from the same factory producing the originals for the Western market
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It's my understanding that in general a lot of gray market product comes from overproduction, misjudging demand. Whether that's true in this case, who knows? It seems strange to talk of lack of demand on the Kindle, but perhaps the supplier produced more than Amazon was willing to buy.
That's pure speculation from a guy (me) who probably doesn't know what he's talking about.
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Originally Posted by Tom Swift
Honestly, I don't really miss Facebook and uTube all that much but it is a pain with blocked podcasts. Which service do you use?
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I use Facebook only because I have lots of family there; I wouldn't miss it if it went away. However, China also blocks blogspot, and with my reading patterns and the fact that blogspot hosts by some estimates 40% of all blogs in the Internet I find myself at blogspot a half dozen times a day. And, inexplicably, a couple of years ago my own websites were being blocked. I have no idea why --
nobody reads my blog
The service I've been using for over a year, without complaint, is
StrongVPN.
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Originally Posted by Tom Swift
I have looked at the various book readers at Metro City and I agree, they are much too expensive.
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I've bought two ereaders there and yes, they are expensive, until you factor in the cost and uncertainties of shipping (I've lost at least two shipments in as many years, one from Amazon). I haven't been back to the States in years, so I'm kind of limited to buying locally.
If you get a look at the Kindles, let us know what you think. I'm pretty confident they're gray market rather than knock-offs, but a second pair of eyes never hurts.
There was
a report about a year ago of gray market Kindles in China, but that was based apparently on an isolated dealer in Beijing. It also mentioned Kindles on Taobao. But I've never felt comfortable enough to buy anything there.
One dealer at Metro City claimed 3G on her Kindles; I didn't specifically ask at the others. A genuine Kindle would have 3G, but you'd have to boot the original firmware to use it; duokan doesn't yet support it.
--Nathanael