jsnydcsa

I'm thinking of buying an Amazon Kindle here in the USA from the Amazon US store. My plan is to give it as a gift to a S. African who resides, lives, works, etc. in South Africa.

Should I just buy the WiFi version as I doubt the connection to SA's cell network (MTN, Voda, whatever) wouldn't be doable.
Should I buy ad-supported or not-ad supported? I'm thinking the thing may not "work" b/c it cannot dial home to Amazon in the USA to suck in ads. Easier to make it "ad free" and leave it at that?
Is this really "doable" - e.g. once the recipient fires it up, will it "work"? I don't really even know if there's a true "Amazon store" SA that this person/the recipient could (a) open an account with and (b) buy books for download (via Wifi) to his Kindle.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Thanks.

PS - Couple of models in mind




https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B08N38WQ...ing=UTF8&psc=1



If these are workable, thoughts appreciated.

Postdoc

I'd buy the WiFi only version without ads. As to downloading Kindle books, your friend shouldn't have a problem with this as long as they have a Amazon.com account. I've got both a UK and US account and there's an option to switch to the US account for digital downloads.

cheltzel

I would agree with Postdoc on this. I have taken US configured cell phones to South Africa and unless the Kindle device includes the SA 3G/4G bands out of the box, I doubt if it would work.

I have been looking at replacing my 10 year old Kindle and was looking at the purchase options. I see 4G versions for Vodafone (international) on the Amazon website. These might work. But you would need to verify the device's 3G/4G band access. If there is some sort a basic issue with the device connecting to the local ZA cellular data provider, you wold effectively have a WiFi only device.

In the US based website, I see options to have the Kindle not linked to the purchaser's Amazon account. I assume the recipient would have to link it to their Amazon account when the device is activated.

Before purchasing anything, I would want to reach out to Amazon customer support to make sure your friend would be able to get full vendor support while attempting to configure and use the device.

B747-437B

I have bought and used dozens of Kindles from the US and other international Amazon stores for use by for myself, family and friends in Africa (including but not only SA) going back more than a decade.

Ad-free WiFi version is what you need - the sim card variant gets very confused although its been nearly 10 years since I tried one of those. Choose "gift" option when purchasing if you don't want it automatically linked to the purchasers account.

You can use any international store you want to purchase digital editions, but Amazon does require that your billing address is set to that country to avail of the local pricing. However, you can get around that by purchasing Amazon gift cards in that currency and loading those instead.

roadwarrier

That is what I did. I do not bother with SIM cards, since WiFi is readily available to do downloads.
I since gave it away and use the Kindle App on my iPad - I got tired of lugging a laptop, iPad and Kindle around when travelling.

But, the bottom line is that it worked well and I now download books from Amazon using the iPad option at checkout.

cheltzel

I personally use the freeware Calibre app (Window/Mac/Linux/IOS/Android) to manage my eBooks. It allows you to maintain all you eBook purchases in a common repository (regardless of purchase source and format) and place them in the appropriate destination on whatever device you want to use as a reader.

jsnydcsa

Thanks.

I believe the intended recipient could set up a UK based AMZN account (e.g. he has a UK address he could use).

Payment might be a little tougher as he likely does not have a payment method (e.g. credit/debit card) he could setup using that UK address.

But, I do like the idea of him using his RSA-based card to buy AMZN gift cards from said UK account and loading them in to his UK account for purchase of books.