Rumour: 10-inch Kindle Fire coming
- 28 June, 2012 22:26
- Comments 1
Kindle Fire gossip is almost as common as iPhone and iPad rumors. Lately we've been hearing a lot about a new Kindle Fire tablet, which may arrive as early as next month. The rumored new model will be the successor to the first-generation Fire that debuted less than a year ago, and not a moment too soon--the impressive specs of the just-announced Google Nexus 7 make the original Fire seem pretty dated already.
Want more rumors? Here ya go: Before the end of 2012, Amazon will unveil its first 10-inch color tablet, one likely designed to go head-to-head with Apple's dominant iPad. BGR reports that the planned 10-inch "Hollywood" tablet will be powered by a quad-core processor.
Better Build
Citing anonymous sources, the report says that both the upcoming 7- and 10-inch Kindle Fire models will have a much better build quality that the original 7-inch Fire, which was derided by some critics for its cheap look and mediocre display. The new models, for instance, will feature a metal casing rather than the plastic body found on the first-gen model.
The 10-inch Kindle Fire also adds a front-facing camera, BGR reports, and both models have a microUSB port and an additional jack that may be an HDMI-out port.
It may be too late at this point, but Amazon might consider adding a front-facing camera to its second-gen 7-inch Kindle Fire as well. The Google Nexus 7 has a 1.2-megapixel camera, and it's priced the same as the original Fire at $199.
The latest Kindle Fire rumors sound much more credible than those of late 2011, when Digitimes reported the second-generation Kindle Fire would have an 8.9-inch screen.
Contact Jeff Bertolucci at Today@PCWorld, Twitter (@jbertolucci) or jbertolucci.blogspot.com.
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Comments
Ian Couper
1
The other key question is availability. Not sure but I believe the Fire is only available in the US. It is certainly not available today in any of the European Union countries.
Why?
Although the Fire is a tablet, Amazon are not currently focussed on the tablet market. The prime focus of the Fire is to drive purchase of Amazon content and drive content purchase away from Barnes & Noble in the US. Presumably it is a loss leader for Amazon and hence not launched where there is no competitive reason to do so. Popularity in the US would almost certainly indicate equivalent levels of popularity and sales in many other countries but Amazon choose not to sell outside the US.
This could all change in the future due to the launch of Nexus7 to drive purchase of Google Play content.
A 10-inch Fire will undoubtedly be optimised for Amazon content and Amazon Cloud services and initial availability will be in countries where Amazon want to focus on growing their services or where there is competitive pressure on those services.
Is Amazon competing in the general tablet market like Samsung etc or are they selling the best tablet to access and draw new customers to their content and cloud services? Almost certainly the latter.