E-Commerce company Amazon has launched its Kindle Fire tablet computer priced at $199, which is less than half of that of Apple’s cheapest iPad which sells at $499.
Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos said the touchscreen Kindle Fire tablet would hit stores in the US from 15 November. The latest entrant in the tablet market created by Apple is unlikely to shave profits off Apple’s iPad’s share this year. Market research company IHSiSuppli has said that the iPad will account for about 75% of global tablet sales in 2011.
The Kindle Fire, a take-off from the company’s popular e-book reader, runs on Google’s Android operating system. The new tablet has 8GB memory, a 7-inch display and comes with a downloadable Amazon app for e-mail. Users can also access movies, television programmes, songs, apps, games, books and magazines via the Amazon website.
Bezos said: ‘Kindle Fire brings together all of the things we’ve been working on at Amazon for over 15 years into a single, fully-integrated service for customers.
‘These are premium products at non-premium prices. We are going to sell millions of these.’
However, the tablet is not 3G enabled and has only Wi-Fi connectivity. The device also does not feature a video camera, something found in most tablet devices.
Amazon is also introducing a new $99 Kindle Touch that will offer cell phone connectivity for $149.
