Amazon Set to Unveil $199 'Kindle Fire' Tablet

No 3G seriously limits the usefulness of such a device for me. However, it still looks somewhat exciting, and the price is right if this article is true. I'll await their official unveiling...

EDIT: I was referring to the Fire, which still doesn't have 3G. Oh, well. The new Kindle models look nice, but I value the keyboard too much to go with the $79 five-way-controller model (searching or annotating has to be the worst with that). I hope the contrast on the Touch screens is as good as it is on the regular ones.

I think Rim's gonna **** theirs pant instead of Apple!

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7" screen is not easy to complete with a 9.7" iPad. But who knows, Steve Jobs may change his thought about a 7" tablet if Amazon goes on fire. Maybe we will see a 7" iPad for $189

I'm interested in seeing its interface.

hopes

Look at the size of the bezel-looks like plenty of room to get bigger there on the inside! I hope it can do Flash so that I can make interactive books that give a fun user experience someday soon!

My daughter is almost 2 years old now. She's been using an ipad for various games and reading/learning apps since she was about 9 months old. It's also been great for playing movies while on car trips.
Lately she drives me and my wife nuts, wanting either our phones or the ipad for angry birds, monkey blast or her interactive books. So much so I was leaning toward getting her a personal ipod touch.

I'll have to wait and see how this kindle plays on the field first. It's right at the same price point. It will all come down to content.

Fire + iPod touch v iPad

Cheers,
OW

what about the LCD Aspect tho?

the battery would be **** compared to e-ink...

when is e-ink color coming out?

MacVault said:

This is great - Apple will have to price the iPad more resonably now!

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I don't think the iPad and this Fire really have that much to compare with each other, especially not price.

Remember that for twice the price, you're also getting "twice" the tablet: larger screen, 3G, two cameras, much larger software base, etc.

As we already know, the iPad was very competitively priced for its features. That hasn't changed.

Having said that, I actually want a tablet in around the 7" size, so I'm watching this announcement with excitement!

MacVault said:

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This is great - Apple will have to price the iPad more resonably now!

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iPad is reasonably priced. Infact before the iPad was unveiled it was expected to be around 1000$. Fun fact.

I would not like a cheaper iPad if that meant using cheaper materials.

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Why are people getting so excited? If you're just in it for reading and some browsing then fair enough, but it isn't much competition to iPad. The hardware, for $199, isn't exactly going to be exciting as well as a mere 7in screen. It'll just be a branded version of those current no-namer 7in android tabs that has a more personalised UI and apps linked to amazon services.

nickgri said:

Look at the size of the bezel-looks like plenty of room to get bigger there on the inside! I hope it can do Flash so that I can make interactive books that give a fun user experience someday soon!

Click to expand...

iPad has interactive books without Flash....

So it seems like the app market for this Kindle Fire is what will determine if it is an iPad threat, or not.

Tablets, but...

Well, it is a tablet. But it depends which way this one is going. Is it the next gen reader or is it set up to run apps like the iPad? It is cheaper and it will attract people who like that fact. But that is true for phones, too. I can get a $1 phone in an instant and I can make calls. Still, people buy iPhones and Android phones and pay a couple of hundreds more for that. I think it will serve the market for low cost alternatives to the iPad which has a bigger screen, 2 cameras, a microphone and so on.

In the end, out of my perspective, it depends on what you want to do with it and what you can afford. I have family overseas and use my iPad to Skype with them and it was worth the $829 for me. This way, even if I'm on the road, I can talk to them and see them and my parents can see their grandson.

Why did they feel the need the mention the iPad is $300 more when from every description it sounds like they compete like a DVD player competes with an entire home media system.

7 inches, no 3G connectivity, no camera, and no microphone. They should give this dog away.

Unless they are selling it in stores, it's not going to be a big competitor to the iPad. iPads are displayed in stores to be played with and people fall in love with them. If Amazon is only selling online, it's going to be more of a risk to buy one if you can't play with it first.

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MacVault said:

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This is great - Apple will have to price the iPad more resonably now!

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Brilliant. Apple brings out the iPad at a price that a) shocks the world for being so low; and b) cannot be profitably matched by competitors.

But as soon as Amazon brings out a tiny plastic tablet, suddenly Apple is being unreasonable...

Dangerous Theory said:

Why are people getting so excited? If you're just in it for reading and some browsing then fair enough, but it isn't much competition to iPad. The hardware, for $199, isn't exactly going to be exciting as well as a mere 7in screen. It'll just be a branded version of those current no-namer 7in android tabs that has a more personalised UI and apps linked to amazon services.

Click to expand...

Exactly. It's a viable option for a cheaper tablet.

Up until now the options have been: pony up $499 for an iPad (or equivalent), or pay less for a smaller tablet of questionable quality and questionable viability with questionable software support.

In other words, "pay less" = "junk".

This represents a smaller, cheaper tablet that (hopefully) isn't junk. A viable option for people who don't want an iPad either for the price or the size of it.

aziatiklover said:

I think Rim's gonna **** theirs pant instead of Apple!

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I'm not a RIM hater but WOW...the hole they are climbing out of just got a *whole* lot deeper...

Amazon just killed every sub-honeycomb android tablet (and the playbook).

People who are wanting iPads and/or Galaxy Tabs are probably not going to be swayed by this, but those needing a low-budget, simple tablet just found their match.

They just revealed a black and white Kindle Touch with e-ink display.
$99.
Looks just like the new Nook.

I think this is likely to be a threat to Apples ipad competitors rather than the iPad itself.

Looks good so far.

Both the iPad and Fire will have their own places in the market. As of right now, I do not see one or the other stealing market share from each other.

The Fire seems like it will attract people who are mainly readers and content consumers. I do not think it will be strong in the areas of content creation and productivity. That being said, most people will settle for a decent tablet when it comes to the $200 price tag. I am happy because a well assembled tablet (let's remember that the Kindle does meet Apple's standards for battery life, so if anyone could actually make a decent tablet, amazon would be my first pick) that will destroy many of the other android tablets out there. Amazon has the online services - a music store, online storage, and movie rentals.

Keep in mind that this could be much better than anything the Xoom or another droid tablet could really offer. So, Fire seems like it will kill droid tablet sales.

Where the iPad comes in is it's an advanced high end tablet made for both content creation and consumption. In short, it's a device that can cut all your cables - once iOS 5 and iCloud are up and running, you won't even need a computer to get started on one of these devices. at $499, the iPad matches the price of some of the most basic computers you can buy. It's literally apple's entry into the sub $1000 computer market. the iPad is a touch based computer.

So, the Kindle Fire will be a device to consume content, somewhat of the magazine role.

People who don't want to give up their computers could easily buy a Kindle just for content consumption - because they wouldn't need an iPad until they decided to get rid of their computer. People with a Kindle Fire may "upgrade" themselves to an iPad. However, I do not see any reason for an iPad user to buy a Kindle Fire. Thus, Apple will stay on top, droid shall be slain, and Fire could still be successful.

Now, all that remains to be seen is what the fire's full list of features is, and how well amazon incorporated them into the device.

merkinmuffley said:

7 inches, no 3G connectivity, no camera, and no microphone. They should give this dog away.

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I don't use any of those features on my iPad 2.