Amazon, the top seller of 7-inch budget tablets, is crashing the high-end tablet market currently ruled by Apple's iPad. Making clear comparisons to the 4G/LTE iPad in its product launching in New York, the online retailer introduced an 8.9-inch Kindle that cuts glare by 25% relative to the latest generation iPad, and has a vivid and crisp 1920 1200 HD 254 ppi display -- in the same range as the 9.7-inch third generation iPad's 264 ppi Retina display. The device's two Wi-Fi antennas and the speedy dual-core TI OMAP 4470 processor provide "40% faster downloads and streaming compared to the next fastest tablet." Amazon also boasts that the 4G model of the Kindle Fire that's shipping November 20th is $400 cheaper: a 32GB Kindle Fire HD 8.9 costs just $499 plus $50 on a 12-month data plan; the iPad 3, on the other hand, costs $729 plus $230 annually for a 250 MB per month data plan.
What Else You Need To Know
- The 16GB, Wi-Fi only 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD is aggressively priced at only $299, making the device $200 cheaper than the entry level iPad.
- Other features of the 8.9-inch tablets include dual speakers with Dolby Digital Plus audio, 16GB/32GB of storage, thickness at just 8mm, Bluetooth, HDMI, 11 hour battery life, front-facing HD camera, auto-switching dual-band WiFi (2.4GHz and 5GHz), and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich customized with Kindle-exclusive apps.
- Amazon also unveiled a 7-inch Kindle Fire HD, which has the same features as the large-screen version except that it has a lower 1280 x 800 HD display, is priced at $199 for the 16 GB model, and is available September 14th.
- Amazon is also releasing an updated version for the first-generation Kindle Fire. Priced at $159 and available September 14th, the updated version uses the same plastic shell and 7-inch display but has 40% faster processor and has twice the RAM for a total of 1GB.
- All three Kindle Fire models are ad-supported, i.e. they will come with advertisements on their lock screens.
Other sources
Amazon and [CEO Jeff] Bezos have shown a strong willingness to upgrade content consumption devices to suit consumer needs. They quickly realized that the key to success was not just in selling a lot of hardware, it was making the purchase and consumption experience seamless.- Lance Ulanoff, Mashable
This feels like a completely different bird -- Amazon set out to make a slate that can compete with some of the top models out there, and from some passing impressions, this thing seems to stack up.- Brian Heater, engadget
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