Amazon believes that readers will be looking to pick up a Kindle Touch rather than wait for the Kindle Fire in the UK.
The Kindle Touch will launch in the UK with a price of £169 for the 3G version, which means one of its direct competitors will be its stablemate the Kindle Fire when it finally makes an appearance in the UK.
Although no date has been announced for the Kindle Fire UK release, Amazon is at pains to point to the differences between an e-ink device and a tablet.
Excitement
"We don't have anything to announce today [in terms of the Kindle Fire arriving in the UK] but from a US perspective we know that our customers love Kindle Fire and are really excited about it," said an Amazon spokesperson.
"But we think customers in the UK are going to like the Touch – we saw that in the US despite having the full range of devices.
"This is built for readers, whereas the Kindle Fire is built for entertainment."
Persuading people to buy a Touch is likely to rest around how fond people are of e-ink, something that Amazon is keenly aware of.
"It's a reader's device," reiterated the spokesperson. "People love the eInk technology and the fact you can read in the sun without glare.
"When people are big readers they don't want to put up with glare or things beeping at them from another app.
"It's...something we purposely did on these devices – you don't get distracted."
Fire or Touch?
It's clear that Amazon will have to persuade the technophile audience that it is worth forking out a significant proportion of a Kindle Fire's cost for the e-reader.
In the US, there is a price difference of $50 (around £30) between the $149 3G touch and the $199 Kindle Fire, although the price of the Touch is significantly upped for the UK.
However, Amazon suggests that people are actually choosing to carry a laptop and a Kindle, rather than just a Kindle Fire which, technically, could replace both.
"We're finding people are bringing a laptop and then they choose between a Kindle or a tablet and a lot of times they are bringing a Kindle - so it's very interesting."
