There’s been a lot of talk about Amazon getting in to the Tablet game over the last few months. Most reports hint at both 7 and 10 inch devices that will perhaps fall in to the Kindle name and be a tablet version of the popular Kindle reading device. TechCrunch managed to take a look at the device and have revealed a few details of what it’s all about.
Although no pictures were taken, a few details of the device were detailed in the report. The first bit of information is the name of it. TC called it the Amazon Kindle. It has a 7 inch screen that is capacitive touch as well as multi-touch. Earlier rumours hinted at it being two finger touch rather than the full 10 finger touch and although not confirmed by TechCrunch, they said it is likely a two finger multi-touch screen.
The Amazon Kindle will use a full colour screen that will be backlit (unlike the regular Kindle that uses eInk with no backlight). This will of course impact the battery although for those wanting a tablet in colour this is a general price to pay. The operating system will be Android although a custom version that looks different to any other version of Android you have seen. The OS is believed to use a carousel layout with content scrolling across the screen (like in iTunes). The interface is black, dark blue and Orange (all traditional Kindle colours) and there’s a dock which disappears below the fold when rotating horizontally.
TC say that only a 7 inch model is likely to be released this year but also mentioned there are hints of a 10 inch model following next year.
Price wise, Amazon expect to be selling the Amazon Tablet for about $250 when it launches which puts it closer to the price of the Nook.
Other technical specs show it will have 6GB of internal storage and a single-core processor. We also hear hints that the 10 inch version will be dual-core. Battery life could be about 10 hours although this isn’t possible to verify just yet with prototype hardware.
The design of the Amazon Kindle Tablet was described as being similar to the BlackBerry PlayBook with a rubber back.
To tempt users to buy it we believe Amazon will promote heavily on its site. TC also reports that Amazon Prime could be bundled in with the service.
The device is close to launching with it expected to arrive in about 4 – 8 weeks (October).
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