TechCrunch just reported that they got hands-on time with the highly anticipated Amazon Kindle tablet. Based on what I’ve read this is a good challenger to the dominating Apple iPad. If TC got it correct this tablet will sell for just $250 (est. Php10,700) making it one of the most affordable and useful tablets to hit the market.
Allow me to summarize the main features based on TC’s article:
- There will be two models — 7? and potentially a 10? (if the 7? is successful).
- The 7? is most likely to have a single core processor.
- It will have Android OS but Amazon didn’t work with Google on this. They built a custom Amazon Kindle OS on top of Android.
- There’s an Amazon App Store for all the social networking apps, games, etc.
- Fully and deeply integrated with the Amazon ecosystem. It has the Amazon store, Amazon Cloud Player,Amazon Instant Video Player, etc.
- No camera.
- 6GB of internal storage. Everything will be in the cloud. There might be SD card expansion.
- Demo version was WiFi only but they’re working on 3G models.
- Very similar in build to the BlackBerry PlayBook (thus the photo I used above)
- It costs $250 USD.
- No release date yet but probably before Holiday season this year.
It may not have all the bells and whistles of the iPad but this has a lot of potential. Let’s see how the market will respond to it.
