What do we know about the Amazon Kindle Tablet?
[Update: we now know this is the Amazon Kindle Fire]
- 7 inch screen
- Available end of November 2011
- To be priced at $250
- Running Android hybrid Operating System
- WIFI only
- No camera
Mockup courtesy: Techcrunch
Rumours of the Amazon Kindle Tablet abound, with Techcrunch being the main focus at time of writing this. MG Siegler at Techcrunch has apparently held one in his hands.
The Amazon Kindle Tablet will have a full color multi-touch back-lit screen, rather than the same e-ink screen as the current Kindles do. This is a full fledged tablet running a fork of Android, it’s a different animal to what Amazon has produced so far.
The main screen will look something like Cover Flow on the iPad to display your Kindle content. At the bottom of the screen is a menu area for easy access to you most-used items. At the top is a status bar and notification area. These both sound very much like the layout of the Android phone I currently have. If you’re used to Android then navigation should be intuitive.
Of course, Amazon’s Content store, Kindle App, Music Player, Movie Player will be prominent, along with Amazon’s Android AppStore. Amazon will want you to purchase your apps and accessories from them be default. It has a built-in Internet browser with tabs. It will be interesting to see what other features are available outside of these – email, for instance, news, weather, and other consumer type applications. It’s rumored that buyers will get a free subscription to Amazon Prime
There’s not a lot of internal storage as this is meant to be a cloud device, and the first model will be WIFI only, however apparently a 3G version is in the works.
The seven inch screen separates it from the iPad and puts it just slightly larger than the current six inch Kindle offering. I’m not convinced here – and will just have to wait to see what this looks like. What’s your thoughts on screen size?
The main advantage of this Kindle tablet will be Amazon’s infrastructure behind it. If Amazon plays this right this tablet could be the next most popular tablet behind the iPad.
Will you hold off your tablet purchase until you’ve seen the Amazon Kindle Tablet?
Sources:
Techcrunch MG Seigler
Techcrunch Greg Kumparak
