After months of rumors and speculations, Amazon has just unveiled a tablet called Kindle Fire at the media event in New York City.
Kindle Fire is an Android based tablet with a multi-touch capable 7-inch IPS display that is powered by a TI OMAP4 dual-core processor, weighs 14.6 ounces and costs only $199.
It comes with 8GB of built-in storage and the battery is rate to last for 8 hours of continuous reading or 7.5 hours of video playback (with WiFi switched off).
It runs a heavily skinned version of Android. Amazon claims it has “painted over the rough surfaces” of Android with its own, more accessible user interface and will allow users to access Amazon’s services including AmazonMP3, Amazon Prime, Amazon Kindle, Amazon Instant Video and the Amazon AppStore.
Amazon has also rolled out a new browser for Kindle Fire called Amazon Silk. They're calling it a cloud-accelerated split browser, with half of the work being done by the Amazon EC2 (Elastic Computing Cloud).
Kindle Fire does not come with a camera, microphone or 3G connectivity.
Amazon CEO Jeff Becoz has also unveiled three new Kindle eReaders - Kindle for $79, Kindle Touch for $99 and top of the line Kindle Touch 3G for $149 with no monthly fees or annual contract.
You can pre-order all the new Kindle devices that were launched today. Kindle Fire ships on November 15th, while Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G ships on November 21st.
The Kindle Fire is being touted by some as an iPad killer. In our opinion, it would be foolish to compare Amazon Fire with a 7-inch screen and 8GB storage, without a camera or microphone with Apple's iPad 2. But it does come with enough features and functionality that could appeal to a large user base, especially since Amazon is offering it an extremely attractive price point.
You can checkout the Kindle Fire demo and hands on view below courtesy folks at This is My Next and also the introductory video on Silk - Amazon's new cloud accelerated split browser, followed by a hands-on video:
What do you think? Please share your views in the comments section below.
There will never be an ipad killer just like there has not been an iphone killer. Competing products will coexist with Apple’s. The $199 price point might be a bit too high though. HP discovered the magic price point and that’s $99.
B4 some one calls me an apple fan boy Im not im a linux user, any way another fail not becuase of the device but the fact its running android, lets have a wild guess at how mnay updates it will recieve hmm 1 or if there real lucky it will get a 2nd updatw than it will be left down to modders /hackers to keep it alive…than there will be a new device running what ever flaver of android out at the time….as I keep saying android is the new microsoft to many devices running the os with no real hardware support….Ill keep with my ipod touch and my nebook running linux
http://gigaom.com/2010/08/02/android-sales-overtake-iphone-in-the-u-s/
I wish media people would stop with the ” killer”.
It’s unlikely in the extreme than IOS will replace Android (for very simple business reasons) or that Android will replace IOS (for similar business reasons).
Apple sells a vertically integrated device, which has a lot of appeal. For other manufacturers to compete, they needed something similar. That’s what Android is. Google has to walk the fine line between completely open and being a walled garden. They’re probably one of the few companies that could manage that on the scale required. And their motivation is pretty simple: the gates to the internet must be toll-free – not only does their business depend on it, their mission does as well (to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful.)
(I own multiple droid devices, every IOS device, and use linux, unix, windows, osx, and all their predecessors. I’ve worked at or with all the companies I mentioned. My daily phone is droid, my tablet is IOS, my laptop and desktop is OSX, my main server is ubuntu. windows has been relegated to VMs, only. I just use whatever makes sense to *me* for the task at hand.)
Dig the mobile website
Dig the mobile .
This looks like a killer product and definitely affect the sales of Apple iPads and Samsung Galaxy tabs. I am going for it.
Mobile!! Yay!!
Dig the mobile sight. Bout time. Well done iPhone hacks
first video removed by user …
great price! only real big issue is no 3g, otherwise I can’t really see what’s missing. Yep, no camera! But who uses that anyway, I only use my phone camera tbh.
That will be a better tablet for my kids than the iPad 2 … but not for me
Iphonehacks well done guys! Thank you.
This tablet will only cannabalize the kindle reader.
Don’t forget this tablet is based on Amdroid 2.2 so no tablet apps will work on this device and most probably never will. Chances are you will be reliant on developers writing specific applications which means this is going to be a pretty restricted device. Only 8GB of storage means that movies will have to be streamed using a WiFi connected, leaving this little more than a glorified MP3 player.
Don’t forget this tablet is based on Amdroid 2.2 so no tablet apps will work on this device and most probably never will. Chances are you will be reliant on developers writing specific applications which means this is going to be a pretty restricted device. Only 8GB of storage means that movies will have to be streamed using a WiFi connected, leaving this little more than a glorified MP3 player and shook reader.
That’s quite true that it won’t be an Ipad Killer, but I really like the idea of the new SILK or Split Browsing.
And above all they should have cut down their cost by putting a Single Core Processor rather than a Dual Core, as nothing “heavy” is meant to be done on the device.
Well, here is the thing. This is not meant to be, nor is it marketed to be an “iPad killer.” It is a color eReader and it is more valid to compare this to the Barnes and Nobles Nook Color. Unless of course the iPad is no longer classified as a tablet and it has been reduced to an eReader itself.
Brilliant! Love it.