The will they/won’t they rumours regarding a possible Amazon Tablet are showing no sign of abating. In fact, now it seems that speculation has arisen that we won’t just see one tablet from Amazon, but will instead get two. Whether they will be under the Kindle tablet brand remains to be seen. What started as rumours on tech web-sites has quickly filtered into mainstream media; its even affecting Forbes’ valuation of the online retailer. Insiders say the planned slates are currently code-named the Coyote and the Hollywood.
Amazon Coyote Tablet
The names give us a possible insight into just what we will be offered as an alternative to the Apple iPad. The Amazon Coyote tablet is expected to be an entry level device running on Nividia Tegra 2 or 3. It is something to lure unsure consumers into the tablet market we imagine, and likely with some degree of ebook focus so it doesn’t feel too new to us. PC Magazine suggest that this could retail at around $349 making it affordable. But if the recent move by Amazon to offer price discounts to customer that don’t mind seeing the odd advert (as in the Kindle with special offers) are anything to go by, you might see even cheaper tablets offered.
Hollywood Amazon Tablet – Kindle For Movies?
The more exciting prospect is the Amazon Hollywood tablet. Expected to run on the vastly more powerful Nividia Tegra 3 this could be a much larger device; perhaps even a 10″ tablet suitable for HD films. And, with a code-name like “Hollywood” it wouldn’t be that much of a surprise if this particular slate became the new Kindle for Movies that could make sense of Amazon’s cloud drive, cloud player and video streaming services. Priced at an estimated $449 this would be a low price for such a powerful product.
Ideally it is thought that Amazon wanted to use displays that could switch between back-lit colour and monochrome e-ink. However the technology isn’t quite there yet, so we’re unlikely to see these until 2012 or even 2013.
And The Release Date?
Well of course nothing is certain, but since the Tegra 3 chip-set won’t be ready till autumn, a tablet release date for Amazon in time for Christmas 2011 looks like a pretty good guess! In fact even Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO has loosened up a little on the subject. Until recently the official line regarding new products has always been primarily denial, but when asked recently about a potential move into the tablet market the response was “watch this space”, so even if we don’t see a release date for a few months yet, we’re likely to get some official news a lot sooner.
Update: Well the US may have their new Amazon Tablet in the form of the Kindle Fire, but still no news on a UK release date for the tablet Kindle. It looks like the company may be a little short on supplies. But more importantly the new Silk browser goes against some of EU internet privacy regulations, so it might not be until well into 2012 that the Fire comes to the UK.
The special offers and ads will only display at the bottom of the Kindle’s home screen and as screen-savers when the device is idle. This means they shouldn’t get in the way of using the device and so might prove a very popular way to get your hands on a cheaper ebook reader.
One of the great advantages of a Kindle ebook reader is that it offers you internet access across the globe. Of course, with its more basic display certain web-sites will not work correctly. Until now, to use Google’s free translation tool on your Kindle, you had to access their mobile site. This was fine, so long as you had particularly great eyesight since the resulting translations tend to be tiny and difficult to read.
Recent Comments