Amazon's Tablet Will Feature Kal-El, Two Sizes
An unnamed tipster has indicated that Amazon's mystery tablet will sport Nvidia's Tegra "Kal-El" SoC, the Android OS and an LCD-based touchscreen in two sizes.
A few weeks ago, Amazon president and CEO Jeff Bezos indicated in an interview with Consumer Reports that a multipurpose tablet may in the works, and for everyone to "stay tuned." Should a device be revealed, he added, it would supplement the current Kindle e-readers rather than replace them. Amazon's Kindle is a "purpose-built e-reading device" and still has a place on the market.
At this point, it's only logical that the nation's largest e-tailer is working on a new device. Barnes & Noble's current NOOK Color is by far more superior, offering color for starters, but also games and other Android-based apps via NOOK Apps. There's also a fully-featured e-mail client, an enhanced Internet experience backed by Adobe's Flash Player and Android 2.2, a built-in music player and more. The NOOK Color is essentially a super-cheap tablet but not marketed as a tablet.
The Kindle, on the other hand, doesn't try to be a tablet. It's an e-book reader through and through sporting an E Ink screen using the latest E Ink Pearl technology. Built with a six-inch reading screen, it weighs only 8.7 ounces, stores up to 3,500 books, and comes with free 3G wireless (if you bought the 3G model). The WebKit-based browser for surfing on the Internet is "experimental" at best.
As for pricing, the Kindle 3G sells for $189 whereas its Wi-Fi only counterpart retails for $139. Barnes & Noble's NOOK Color is a lot more expensive, costing $249 for the Wi-Fi model. Deemed as the "reader's tablet" and the "best value in the tablet world," the NOOK Color seems to be selling quite well, enough so that Amazon is now looking to enter the tablet sector.
An unnamed source in Taipei has informed PC Magazine that Amazon's mystery tablet is set to hit the market just in time for the 2011 holidays sporting a display similar to the NOOK Color and the Samsung Galaxy Tab. The company actually wanted to use a screen that switched from color to the familiar black/white E Ink setup, but the display won't be ready until 2012 or 2013, so Amazon settled with the standard LCD-based touchscreen. These will be 7-inches and 10-inches, the source said.
Other details surrounding the tablet/e-reader are scarce, but the Taipei source said that it will use Google's Android OS and a quad-core Tegra chip from Nvidia, namely "Kal-El." The new SoC, slated to arrive in devices during the second half of this year, will be five times faster than the current Tegra 2 SoC. It will also come packed with a 12-core Nvidia GPU supporting stereoscopic 3D video playback and a 2560 x 1600 resolution. That said, Amazon's upcoming tablet will be more than just a glorified e-reader like Barnes & Noble's NOOK Color.
Amazon entering the Android tablet sector shouldn't be surprising given that it launched an Android-based app store and a music cloud service catered to the Android OS. To reel Android users away from Google's Android Market, the company is now offering a free app each day. On the cloud player front, Amazon will upgrade the free 5 GB cloud locker to 20 GB for a full year (for free) after purchasing one digital album. Amazon's tablet will likely sport a modified Honeycomb OS and integrate/enhance these two services rather than offer Google's Android Market and Music Player.
It's speculated that Amazon's tablet will be shown at Computex 2011 which takes place in the next few weeks. The original Kindle launched back in November 2007, followed by the Kindle 2 in February 2009. The Kindle "3" arrived in July 2010, and as with the prior two editions, was not announced or revealed during Computex.
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That's why Amazon isn't selling their new (LCD display) tablet as a Kindle replacement. The Kindle is still the best dedicated e-reader, with its e-ink pearl screen, and extremely long battery life. Not to mention free 3G downloads, if you opt for that model. Plus, if you don't need the 3G (I went WiFi only) you don't have to get the $139 model. There's the $114 "ad-supported" model now. The ads are completely unobtrusive. All they do is put a tiny banner on the bottom of the Home page, and put ads (instead of random pictures) on the lock screen. It locks and unlocks just like a normal Kindle. There are no ads to "wait through", and no ads when you're reading or browsing. I've shown it to users of the $139 Kindles, and they agree that it's like $25 free.
That's not to say that the Nook Color doesn't have its place too. As a matter of fact, one of the best things about it is that it's easy to slap a full-blown Gingerbread install on it. Better still, you can boot Android from a memory card. This means you can restore it to factory just by powering it off, removing the card, and booting it back up (off the internal ROM). So it makes for a really inexpensive but halfway decent Android tablets. This is the price range Android tablets should be in, not trying to compete with the iPad 2!
the unnamed source in Taipei could be from Pixel Qi?
Amazon isn't afraid to offer products at minimal profit or maybe even a loss to gain market share. (They will more than recoup this with app and song purchases) Just look at their strategy with free app of the day and the $0.99 albums.
If anyone's looking for a Google Music Beta invite, I found a blog giving them out for free. I figured that the waiting list would be too long, so I tried the blog out, and got my invite about an hour later. Nice.
I don't know if they have any remaining invites, but if you want to try your luck here's the site:
http://freemusicbetainvites.com.nu
put some usb ports on it, and i'll buy one
the unnamed source in Taipei could be from Pixel Qi?
Yeah, whatever happened to Pixel Qi ? There were all the rave last year or so.
Wow 12 core GPU, this should be a good gaming tablet.
Amazon better hurry up with their color Kindle. Consumer Reports just rated the new touch screen Nook as superior to the Kindle. In my opinion, it isn't just a little better than the Kindle it is a LOT better. With a touch screen it is vastly easier to use and it doesn't have all those little buttons. And the ePub ebook format is a plus when compared to the Kindle proprietary format.