Amazon's Kindle Tablet Sees Biggest Leak Yet: $250, Ships By Christmas

Is the Amazon Tablet truly upon us? So says TechCrunch. While rumors have been running for months on end concerning a future tablet from the same company that delivered the Kindle, no one really had much concrete evidence that such a mystery truly existed until now. The publication has apparently seen, handled and played with the new Kindle Tablet, and oddly enough, Amazon is apparently planning to simply call it the "Amazon Kindle." So, it'll be just another in the long line of Kindle products, but it'll be a far cry from the E Ink editions that are out now.

It'll have a full-color LCD (7"), a capacitive touch layer, and it'll run a very colored version of Android. In fact, we're told that Amazon isn't even working with Google on this project, hence, it looks nothing like any build of Android you've ever seen. And obviously, there's the question of Android Market access; will it have it? Hard to say, but that's probably why Amazon hedged their bets and created their own app store months back.


According to the report, the device looks a lot like RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook, and amazingly, it'll only cost $250. That means that this could very well be the tablet that finally shakes things up for the iPad. Amazon is a trusted name, and that's a tempting price. The device is devoid of any physical buttons, and not surprisingly, the music player is Amazon's own Cloud Player. In fact, Amazon's suite of products are used throughout: Kindle for book reading, Instant Video for videos, and Android Appstore for apps.

As for impressions? We're told that the UI felt "very responsive," and there's no doubt that they've taken a lot of time to put this in the league with the iPad, albeit at a lower price. A few other key points: there's only 6GB of internal storage, as Amazon intends for this to be mostly a cloud device. The initial one will be Wi-Fi only, but there may be 3G models in the future. There's no camera, and speakers are along the top of the device.


Will you consider this over the Nook Color? With Amazon's pedigree, we bet a lot of people will. If all goes well, the new Kindle tablet should ship by Christmas, and boy, what a Christmas Amazon will have.