Amazon Drops Kindle Price, Takes It Global

Amazon has slashed the price of the Kindle again, bringing the retail price down to a more affordable, but still arguably pricey, $259. At the same time, Amazon is also unveiling a new international Kindle for $279 to expand the market beyond the United States.

The $40 price drop brings the Kindle down 35 percent from the initial $400 price it was introduced at. That is still rather costly for a device that reads books. Even considering that the Kindle edition of books are typically available for $9.99.

However, compared to the similarly equipped device from Sony, the Amazon Kindle is quite a bargain. When Sony first rolled out its new line of e-readers it appeared that the devices were significantly cheaper than the Amazon Kindle. However, after Sony added wireless connectivity and made the screen a little larger the price jumped up to $399.