The Kindle Color?

[RockdaMan]

Something about these guesses ring true for me.

Something similar to the Nook Color: an inexpensive, low-end 7” tablet with a backlit color LCD capacitive touchscreen covered in glass. (Or, in layman’s terms: like the iPad, but slower, smaller, and cheaper.)

Amazon will go to great lengths to get very good battery life, even at the expense of thinness or lightness. While it won’t match the e-ink Kindles, it will probably provide at least 12 hours of reading time at low brightness.

That would mean leaving common services that WiFi and 3G (if it has it) off.

The Nook Color runs Android, but you’d never know it: it’s buried under B&N’s completely custom interface and applications. There’s no Android Market to download apps, no Gmail, no Google Maps, no Google-anything. Saying it “runs Android” is like saying the HP TouchPad “runs Linux”: it’s more of a low-level technicality than any indication of what its customers see and use.

I see Amazon doing the same thing: Android 2.x under the hood, but an Amazon UI with Amazon apps for all core functionality. And, importantly, the Amazon Appstore — and not Google’s Android Market.

Video and news-browsing will be major upselling points from the e-ink Kindle and will likely be emphasized in the interface.

Kindle is a very strong and successful brand for Amazon. The name will include “Kindle”, such as Kindle Touch, Kindle Color, or Kindle Tablet.

It will cost around $249 unsubsidized or $199 with ads (“Special Offers”).

The Amazon tablet will be much more like the Kindle: an alternative, inexpensive device dedicated to Amazon’s content stores, bought and used primarily for reading books, browsing the newspaper, and watching movies.

Some people who would have bought an iPad will buy the Amazon tablet instead, but many people will buy it in addition to an iPad.

Sounds right to me.

http://www.marco.org/2011/08/27/amazon-tablet-guess

[ucfgrad93]

Sounds interesting. I can't wait until Amazon announces them.

[OtterBooks]

The Amazon tablet will be much more like the Kindle: an alternative, inexpensive device dedicated to Amazon’s content stores, bought and used primarily for reading books, browsing the newspaper, and watching movies.

That's not really like the Kindle at all. I agree that they will have a 7" tablet as one of their models. My price guess for that is $299.

I think Amazon is more creative than to name it the "Kindle [X]," but they may very well do that. It's in their best interest to make the tablet stand apart, imo. They don't need the Kindle brand for recognition. They're Amazon. That's branding enough.

Also, Amazon allegedly set up an office building full of Android programmers a while back. Knowing Amazon, they will be putting a lot of polish and effort into their rendition of Android. This device is gonna be all Amazon, and my speculation is that the interface is gonna be impressive as hell.

[RockdaMan]

I've never known otters to wear hats before.

[Joseph R]

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

That's not really like the Kindle at all. I agree that they will have a 7" tablet as one of their models. My price guess for that is $299.

I think Amazon is more creative than to name it the "Kindle [X]," but they may very well do that. It's in their best interest to make the tablet stand apart, imo. They don't need the Kindle brand for recognition. They're Amazon. That's branding enough.

Also, Amazon allegedly set up an office building full of Android programmers a while back. Knowing Amazon, they will be putting a lot of polish and effort into their rendition of Android. This device is gonna be all Amazon, and my speculation is that the interface is gonna be impressive as hell.

I wonder what is their relationship with Google now that they seem to, or are on the road, fork the Android Platform: simply meaning that they have taken the code and changed it, so that it will not be compatible with the Google Flavour of Android. The irony of this is that Google's Android is, itself, a fork of Linux.

Amazon and Google used to be best partners, if not, and I use the term lightly, "friends" in the first portion of the 2000's. Remember every time you typed searched terms in Google, an Amazon ad would show up beside with your searched terms in bold? I believe that there is some animosity between the two, especially when Google developed and promoted Google Books. Therefore, I believe that when there was the release of the Irivier Story HD, the first e-reader with access to Google Books, the line was crossed for Amazon, which would explain why they invested in an App Store and, like you said: "...set up an office building full of Android programmers a while back."

[carld]

If it's less than a 9-inch device I won't be interested, whatever the price.

[OtterBooks]

Originally Posted by Joseph R

I wonder what is their relationship with Google now that they seem to, or are on the road, fork the Android Platform: simply meaning that they have taken the code and changed it, so that it will not be compatible with the Google Flavour of Android. The irony of this is that Google's Android is, itself, a fork of Linux.

I doubt they've altered it to that extent. Most likely a heavily warmed-over interface, along the lines of HTC's Sense, but maybe to a higher degree. Or maybe I'm suspecting way too much and it won't a big deal at all. Who knows.

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

I've never known otters to wear hats before.

Only in the wild.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

I've never known otters to wear hats before.

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

Only in the wild.

Its from bloody war with the beavers. Otters display traditional trophies of their enemies - beaver felt top hats.

Otters: not just as cute and cuddly as they appear.

[mldavis2]

Originally Posted by carld

If it's less than a 9-inch device I won't be interested, whatever the price.

Everything is a compromise.
Bigger screen = heavier, more uncomfortable to hold, shorter battery charge life.
Backlit = shorter battery charge life.

For my needs, the Nook/Kindle platform is about perfect for a 2 week vacation away from electrical outlets (I just finished one in Alaska) and being able to safely pack it in carry-on baggage or a backpack within reasonable size and weight restrictions. I used a simple book light for evening reading in the tent.

[carld]

Originally Posted by mldavis2

Everything is a compromise.
Bigger screen = heavier, more uncomfortable to hold, shorter battery charge life.
Backlit = shorter battery charge life.

For my needs, the Nook/Kindle platform is about perfect for a 2 week vacation away from electrical outlets (I just finished one in Alaska) and being able to safely pack it in carry-on baggage or a backpack within reasonable size and weight restrictions. I used a simple book light for evening reading in the tent.

That's true of course, but some characteristics are critical and simply not open to compromise. My K3 is perfect for reading text, and I love and use it to death. However, for non-plain text documents like PDFs and magazines, a 7-incher like the nook color is just too small for my eyes. I refuse to hold up a reader and squint to read some of the smaller text, so for me screen size simply isn't something I can compromise on.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by Phogg

Its from bloody war with the beavers. Otters display traditional trophies of their enemies - beaver felt top hats.

Otters: not just as cute and cuddly as they appear.

[stonetools]

I still think that Amazon will offer a 10" tablet, because it wants to promote it's video on demand market ( video is more lucrative a market than ebooks). In terms of gaming, a 10" screen is better too. Gaming is a big part of the tablet app market.
A 10" tablet will not be 250- more like 350-400.

[OtterBooks]

My crystal ball says

7" Amazon tablet, $249-299
10" Amazon tablet, $449-$599

Both will come with many support perks, freebies, and so forth. "Free" this, "exclusive" that..the devices will be heavily marketed on their benefits and ecosystem.

[molman]

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

My crystal ball says

7" Amazon tablet, $249-299
10" Amazon tablet, $449-$599

Both will come with many support perks, freebies, and so forth. "Free" this, "exclusive" that..the devices will be heavily marketed on their benefits and ecosystem.

Isn't the 10" ASUS Eee PC Transformer under US$400 with pretty good specs and screen? I think it would be nice if Amazon could get into that ballpark.

[joenunya]

Originally Posted by carld

If it's less than a 9-inch device I won't be interested, whatever the price.

Much as this sounds like a common phrase uttered in the San Fernando Valley, aka San Pornando Valley, it's about ebook readers and tablets. For me it's anything less than 10.1" won't work.

I also prefer an IPS 16:10 or squarer screen. One part of the iPad I liked was the screen ratio but after playing with some 10.1"/16:10 tablets I found I loved using them.