Coming to New York, where to get Kindles?

[arturg]

Hello all,

I am travelling to US with my fiance, to New York. Where in Manhattan one could find a store with Kindles? I would like to buy her PW11 as a gift.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by arturg

Hello all,

I am travelling to US with my fiance, to New York. Where in Manhattan one could find a store with Kindles? I would like to buy her PW11 as a gift.

Best Buy should have them.

[drofgnal]

Possibly Target as well.

[Quoth]

Though you'll have no warranty, or EU Sale of Goods Act protection.

Also a Kindle needs an address with payment method or it's crippled. I don't know which Kindle/Amazon Marketplace is used for Finland. Finnish people can buy a Kindle on the UK or German Amazon Marketplace, but the German one is recommended as they are in EU and you will have no issue with VAT, customs or 1 year warranty.

Not all models of Kindle can be bought on UK Marketplace for outside UK, even Isle of Man and Channel IS, or Ireland (UK is default Marketplace for Ireland), but I think German site is OK. Some non-Amazon products don't ship from Germany to Ireland. Often Germany works out cheaper than UK (even with shipping vs UK free over £25 on qualifying products) for Ireland. Buying for Finland should be the same as Ireland from Germany, by law.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Though you'll have no warranty, or EU Sale of Goods Act protection.

Also a Kindle needs an address with payment method or it's crippled. I don't know which Kindle/Amazon Marketplace is used for Finland. Finnish people can buy a Kindle on the UK or German Amazon Marketplace, but the German one is recommended as they are in EU and you will have no issue with VAT, customs or 1 year warranty.

Not all models of Kindle can be bought on UK Marketplace for outside UK, even Isle of Man and Channel IS, or Ireland (UK is default Marketplace for Ireland), but I think German site is OK. Some non-Amazon products don't ship from Germany to Ireland. Often Germany works out cheaper than UK (even with shipping vs UK free over £25 on qualifying products) for Ireland. Buying for Finland should be the same as Ireland from Germany, by law.

A Kindle can be a registered with a valid Amazon account. You don't need an Amazon.com account to register a Kindle bought in the US.

[Strether]

A search “Where can you buy a Kindle in NYC” brings up two Best Buy stores and a Staples store. I think if you went into a Best Buy store and they didn’t have one in stock, they could arrange to have one transferred from a store that did have one.

Jim

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

A Kindle can be a registered with a valid Amazon account. You don't need an Amazon.com account to register a Kindle bought in the US.

No, you don't. That isn't what I was suggesting.

My point is that buying it in the US (in store or Via Amazon on line) won't give you a a US Kindle account. The Marketplace for the Kindle ebooks depends on the address of your payment method, though sometimes they care about IP address too.

The only potential advantage for someone from Europe to buy in store in USA is once off price, but at cost of no warranty and risk of customs / VAT when going home (might be no risk).

Personally I'd only buy an item in store on a USA visit that might need warranty if it was unavailable otherwise. It's not unlikely to have a Kindle defect some weeks later. Or if it was a disposable amount of money.

We also had the problem here with in store Kindles that they all have the adverts. You could only buy an ad-free model online. Also I've had to return various top brand items for refund or replacement, locally and online. It seems too common.

[arturg]

Thank you for the tips. We both use Kindles purchased in Finland but I am registered to US Amazon account and don't mind that, because I don't purchase books from Amazon. Also we were able to disable ads by chatting with the customer service and no fees for that.

However the issue with warranty might be a good idea to just pitch in few euros more and just buy it in Finland.

[arturg]

I imagine BestBuy or Target would would sleep covers for Kindles as well? How big is the variety of designs and colors?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by arturg

Thank you for the tips. We both use Kindles purchased in Finland but I am registered to US Amazon account and don't mind that, because I don't purchase books from Amazon.
…

I can purchase in most Amazon Marketplaces except maybe Japan. What actually can ship varies tremendously.
Paper books do have regional locked distribution according to historic publisher geographic 'rights', but Amazon does not apply these to paper books sold online.

In Ireland the default Kindle ebook store is the UK Marketplace, but Irish customers can change "Kindle store" to USA. This applies to all apps/devices! This doesn't change geographic Digital rights, so if a book is unavailable when logged in on UK Store, you swap Kindle(s) to USA, log out and 'visit' USA, you see the book & price, but when you log-in the book is unavailable. Only the same books are available as for UK Store in Ireland (only once in 10+ years have I seen a UK available Kindle title be unavailable in Ireland). I don't exactly know why Amazon added this feature for Irish Kindles in the last few years. The prices are often not quite the same. Nor do know why there is no Kindle store for Ireland in Euros.

"Travelling" to different Kobo stores only requires Paypal and an address. It seems largely impossible for Kindle ebooks even though Amazon is ignoring geographic publishing rights on paper books and many items (including a gift voucher) can be published in any Markplace. An Amazon gift voucher (which works for ebooks) has to be bought in the marketplace where it is to be spent. The Buyer and Redeemer don't need to be based in that marketplace.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by arturg

I imagine BestBuy or Target would would sleep covers for Kindles as well? How big is the variety of designs and colors?

That is a likely a good saving and isn't likely to need a warranty