As someone who just got a chinese brand android derivative for experimentation, curiosity and comparison I can assure you that if Amazon decides to differentiat

As someone who just got a chinese brand android derivative for experimentation, curiosity and comparison I can assure you that if Amazon decides to differentiate heavily across brand they will efficiently partition the android universe. The difference between Hardware/Android and Amazon/Android is that Amazon is not hardware but ecosystem. Here is a key why. The market place. Not having an integrated google calendering or maps or email system is okay, the android browser is great with html5 and youtube support. If they do not use the browser it makes things much worse but still bearable - I am sure suitable alternatives will turn up. But the marketplace is not freely available. You will not find it in any legal channels (you can find the amazon store though). And then all those sites with links, QR codes etc will be broken. All those apps people speak of and the instructions to get them will not be readily matched. I know why this is, but people whose main interests lie outside tech will think android doesn't work - if the marketing places emphasis on the fact that the devices run android. Only those who know how to root, sideload and know where to find apk files will be able to get some access to the Google universe - for example google docs is not on the Amazon app store. That is, until the stores reach some level of parity in terms of alternatives and due to the fact that configuring for two stores is not such a biggy as things go. And then the division as partitioned by average experiences/expectations due to defaults will be complete. For what its worth I much prefer the amazon app store in terms of functionality, search and recommendations. Based on appstore I suspect the amazon devices will only be available in the US first.