In The much-awaited tablet PC from Amazon has been unveiled. It carries a price table of just $199, which is cheap enough give Apple Inc's iPad some serious competition for the first time.
The tablet goes by the name of Kindle Fire and is equipped with a 7-inch display and will have access to all of Amazons content including AmazonMP3, Amazon Prime, Amazon Kindle, Amazon Instant Video and the Amazon AppStore. It is powered by a dual-core processor and weighs 14.6 ounces.
Customers in USA will be able to pre-order the device from today, but it will ship only in November. Amazons CEO Jeff Bezos also unveiled a brand new version of its popular eReader called the Kindle touch. The $99 Kindle touch is equipped with an infrared layer on top of the E-Ink display to help avoid with any interference while reading and EasyReach technology for turning the pages by tapping the screen in specific areas. In addition, an X-Ray feature allows users to view where and when certain characters or places take place in a book.
The lowest priced Kindle now costs only $79.
Were going to sell many millions of these, Bezos said, over and over again, as he unveiled different versions of the Kindle. As of now there is no reason to doubt him. He claimed that there were premium products at non-premium prices. Having its own tablet is important for Amazon because the company has amassed a mountain of digital goods and services that could be sold through such a device.
In recent years, the company has begun offering downloadable music for sale, and also has a streaming video-on-demand service in the United States. Those, combined with its mobile application store, give it a more sophisticated content "ecosystem" than most of its rivals.
Analysts also expect the tablet to encourage Amazon customers to shop online for physical products more often. Amazon shares rose 3.2 percent to $231.29 in morning trading, while Barnes & Noble, maker of the Nook e-reader, dropped 6.2 percent to $12.39. The global release dates of the Kindle Fire are still unavailable.
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