The Amazon Kindle Fire, a sub-$200 tablet (also a sub $100 Kindle and Kindle Touch).

[Tyche]

This Is the New Kindle Fire Color—and It's Only $199!
http://gizmodo.com/5844623/amazon-ki...a-shocking-199

This Is the New Kindle Fire Color—and It’s Only $199!

Incredible. Business Week is reporting the Amazon Kindle Fire will cost only $199! This is a killer price for a tablet like this. Even while it doesn't match the iPad's features, there's going to be some fierce competition this year:
Even the most optimistic analysts pegged the price at $250. Keeping the price tag below the $200 psychological mark is going to have a big effect in the mind of consumers. Unlike other tablet competitors, Amazon will also its powerful store to sell this tablet, which will also enjoy Amazon's cloud services and offer as much books, music and movies as Apple does.
Read the whole genesis of the tablet at [Business Week]

More info to come out later today. Could be a very good deal to those that missed out on the touchpad.

[Tyche]

Other news and notes from the Amazon event. A new Kindle Touch is being released. Smaller than the 3G, no keyboard.

[Celeste]

That dude looks like he is trying to steal Steve Job's thunder.

[Tyche]

The touchscreen kindle will be $99, also has built in 3G...for free ($149 for the 3G version).

Also a $79 kindle. Has buttons to turn pages, but no keyboard, no touchscreen. Not sure how that works, but I guess I don't really use my keyboard all that often on the one I have.

[Julian]

Cheap kindle looks decent, if you don't already own an e-reader.

I assume this new fire thing is just a shitty tablet, with horrible battery life? I'll pass until color e-ink is a reality.

[Tyche]

The tablet will have a dual core processor, only tech spec released so far. Also will have access to the prime library and everything will sync. If you start watching a movie on the tablet, you can finish the movie at home on your TV with no tethering. All synced up.

10:38AM ...and it remains to be seen whether you can actually get to Android, but signs are pointing to no.

10:38AM This is a very heavily-customized interface, naturally. It looks nothing like Android.

Expected, but still kind of a letdown. Will probably be rooted in a day or two.

[richardd]

i dont know, i'll just jew it out and stick with the old cheap 99$ ones, lol. if i want a tablet with all the features, i'd just go that route and spend the extra couple hundred. having this thing would be a tease, despite it's price for all the features it will lack. but i could be wrong.

[octopus]

I just wonder... if they're going to release the kindle browser/music/movie apps separate for regular android users...

I would love being able to watch Amazon Instant videos directly on a regular android tablet.

[Kaisha]

Is it running Android? Article doesn't really say specifically.

Might pick one up for my mum's bday at that price since she's always had a fascination for small tablets for some reason. Bonus points if it can play casual $5-or-less games off the Android market.

[octopus]

It "runs" android... as in they took the source code and build on it. You can't exit the Amazon GUI to an android interface.

[Bardicrune]

Pretty sure it'll be rooted and running a full version of android within 2-3 weeks of it's release.

[rezn0r]

just grabbed my gf a Nook color really cheap and put CM7 on it. it's slow but it runs everything thrown at it. this would be even better (too bad i can't see the future). but yeah, what Bardicrune said -----^

[Khamsin]

I'm just going to wait for the next generation DX, and the corresponding price drop. I am a bit disappointed though they didn't announce it with the others, but hopefully they aren't putting it off for too long.

[Delirium]

just bought a kindle wifi a few months ago I do want a Kindle Fire now

[Qalbert]

sorry for the necro, but with christmas coming up I got asked what I wanted as a big present, interested in getting a Kindle and can either get the new touch or 100-150 towards a Fire. Obviously they are essentially two separate things in terms of capabilities, and I like the idea of a tablet that i can do a bunch with, but without needing a whole lot of bells and whistles. Any idea on how the Fire is, and whether it can be modded or whatever in a way to allow me to load it with downloaded content form torrents etc, rather than buying ebooks and the like. Also would love if it could be made to use .cbr files so i could comfortable read my 1 million comic books.

[Caiyuo]

here's the engadget review, details a few things including reading comics (not sure about format compatibility) that you might wanna look at; text seems to come up in separate boxes instead of being able to zoom in. http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/14/a...e-fire-review/

The general impression I've heard was that it's what you'd expect, not really an ipad competitor, but an affordable tablet. If you're actually planning to read e-books, though, I've heard the backlit panel as opposed to an e-ink screen that the other kindles have is hard on the eyes. I've also heard that the Kindle Touch is kind of balls, the $79 Kindle with the single button seems to be the favorite.

[Qalbert]

yeah that's what I'm trying to decide, if I need a basic tablet or just an e-reader, since a lot of the time I'd just be using it at home and can do videos etc on my computer. I'll probably go the basic kindle route then.

[Qalbert]

can the basic e-reader ones be made to allow pirated ebooks? i really know very little about how they work.

[Jojimbo]

Looks like it supports pdf/mobi/txt as standard, epub has to be converted (guide) so it should do.

[dejet]

can the basic e-reader ones be made to allow pirated ebooks? i really know very little about how they work.

it does, pdf books work just fine from torrents as do kindle books people hacked to allow anywhere. Only thing with PDFs is that a lot of the times the chapters dont work(or they are not programmed) if you do not mind that then go for it.