Amazon Kindle With Android
We have been talking of the new Amazon tablet for some time and this week had rumours flying around the web in record numbers, so here is the latest news that has merit:
In what has been touted as a big scoop by TechCruch writer MG Siegler, the much anticipated Amazon tablet could be appearing first as a beefed up kindle to compete with the Barnes and Noble colour reader that is offered within this market.
What is perhaps interesting though is that the new Amazon kindle appears to be running on Google’s Android operating system similar to the Nook color.
What will it look like?
With a name of “Amazon Kindle” the title does not really offer much, however the rumours are that the device with be a 7 inch full-color multi touch display, which is wall to wall on the front of the device, and there appears to be no buttons at all on the tablet/reader.
Siegler is quoted saying:
“The interface is all Amazon and Kindle. It’s black, dark blue, and a bunch of orange. The main screen is a carousel that looks like Cover Flow in iTunes which displays all the content you have on the device. This includes books, apps, movies, etc. Below the main carousel is a dock to pin your favorite items in one easy-to-access place. When you turn the device horizontally, the dock disappears below the fold. Above the dock is the status bar (time, battery, etc) and this doubles as a notification tray. When apps have updates, or when new subscriptions are ready for you to view, they appear here. The top bar shows “YOUR NAME’s Kindle” and then the number of notifications you have in bright orange. It looks quite nice.”
A hybrid device – the “readlet” perhaps:
With Amazon firmly committed and leading the way in cloud computing, this new device is set to open up and introduce tablets to a new generation. It will offer access to the Kindle app store for books etc as well as Amazon’s Cloud Player which will work as a music player to the device. Video will be provided by Instant Video Player to play movies (I assume streaming from a netflix account will also be an option) as well as access to the Amazon app store giving this reader the same kind of functionality a tablet offers.
The reader will be released with a free offering to access Amazon’s $79 a year premium service giving access to video though this maybe only a trial.
Functionality and Price:
Apparently the new Kindle tablet will only house a 6GB of storage space, though in my opinion when cloud services are providing a lot of your data (video streaming, dropbox type solutions and other cloud based services) I am not unhappy that a potentially dangerous spill of coffee could ruin all your photo’s, or downloaded files etc, let’s embrace the future, it is safer and lighter!
Also not to be found is access to a SD card slot, so again Amazon appear to be pushing people to use their cloud based subscription services.
But here is the good news that Amazon are rumoured to be offering……all this for under $250, with a 10 inch option coming out soon, we must say it all sounds pretty damn impressive.
The back of the device is rumoured to be rubbery and the initial device will only be Wi-Fi enabled so no 3G or 4G connectivity as yet.
So quite simply the new name of the Amazon tablet appears to be simply a Kindle with a range of options on offer now to the consumer, from the grey e-ink variety to a full color tablet style running android O/S.
So what do you think of the new Amazon kindle tablet? Something worth looking at?
At this price we think it could be a real shaker of the market.
Anthony Munns