I am a huge fan of Amazon Kindle. They are, so far as I'm concerned, the best e-readers out there with the combination of quality and the huge library of Amazon. If you are serious about reading and want digital solution you have to go with an e-reader, preferably a Kindle. It's the closest thing you get to reading paper, unlike any tablet with their glare and hard to read screen in sunlight.

Unfortunately, as a Canadian I have a love/hate relationship with Amazon and their Kindle devices. Yesterday (August 6th) they announced their new line-up of Kindle devices: Kindle Paperwhite, Kindle Paperwhite 3G, and a 4 Kindle Fire's (their tablet). And, as usual, NONE of these are available to Canadians or even anyone outside of the USA. Please note that the standard Kindle is available to Canadians for an even lower price of $89.

Now I'm sure that the Paperwhite Kindles (brighter, front-lit, longer battery life) will be here soon after the initial buying frenzy in the USA has slowed, but the Fire's will probably never be available here. The problem is that the Fire's are made to consume Amazon content other than books. In the USA Amazon has a massive library of movies, TV shows and music. They are the only company that can compete with Apple in terms of the amount of content they can provide. What Amazon has neglected to do is bother to get any other international rights for any of their content which makes it impossible to have that media library available to Canadians (or any other country). I've read other people saying that the Fire's should be available in Canada even if we can't get the media content. I agree that a Fire would be nice to have, but people also have to realize that Amazon is making either very little (literally a few dollars) or losing money on each device. Amazon is not in business to make money on hardware - they make it all on content. With this in mind you can understand why Amazon would never sell a Fire in Canada when they don't have the content available to make the money.

The only thing we can hope for is that Amazon spreads it's coverage and chooses their closest neighbour first. I'm sure Canada would welcome them with open arms since we are pretty much starved for any substantial media content up here. Please Amazon, come North!