5 ms·

7-inch Amazon Tablet launches in October, 10-inch Version in Q1 2012

57 points by luigionline 15y ago

hopeless 15y ago
I have 30-40 eBooks (mostly PDF) which aren't very suitable for a Kindle because they're mostly photographic books and/or programming with nicely highlighted text. I'm hoping Amazon have realised that eBooks are not restricted to B&W text and are producing a device to serve that market.
- mdaniel 15y ago
  I am so scared that this mythical new tablet will use a glossy screen, just like almost every other color tablet out there. I say soft prayers at night that Amazon will build on the readability of the Kindle's screen and make their new device have that same soft matte finish.
noonespecial 15y ago
Let's hope they're right on the much lower price. There's a lot of places I'd like a little web tablet that I just can't risk my $500 iPad. It sure would be a disappointment if it's just another tablet that costs the same as an ipad but that's not nearly as good.
- luigionline 15y ago
  if Amazon manages to make their 7-inch tablet the "netbook" of tablets than it has a winner.
- hullo 15y ago
  I'm not sure why so many of these speculation articles don't mention the NOOK Color, which is a 7" Android-based tablet primarily concerned with reading with a secondary focus on media, that has a specialized Android app market. Price: $250. There's your target. The story with a 10" will be different, but it sounds like that's a question for next year.
  - SwellJoe 15y ago
    Agreed. I played with a Nook Color a couple weeks ago and was impressed. If I could figure out a reason to add yet another piece of portable electronic junk to my collection (alongside a Nexus One, a Dell netbook dualbooting Linux or Mac OS X, a laptop, a Kindle, a DS, and probably other crud I can't remember now), it's what I'd buy. It's cheap enough to nearly be an impulse purchase, it seemed fast enough and powerful enough for what I'd want to use it for (though the netbook with a keyboard works better, since writing is mostly what I imagine I'd want to use it for), and it was cute and fun to play with. So, yeah, there's already a low price point competitor to the iPad, though it's not being marketed as such. B&N may be making a mistake in not pushing it harder as a full-featured tablet...but maybe they know its limitations better than I do. At that price point, it almost certainly is similarly specced to a very low end Android phone, so probably can't actually run a lot of bigger apps effectively.
    - joezydeco 15y ago
      B&N isn't making a mistake in not pushing it as a tablet...because it's not a tablet. It's an e-reader that just happens to have a little web browser and app store mechanism in it. B&N is selling these at a loss (or at least breakeven) hoping for the makeup in book sales. They can't be running around telling everyone that it's great as a web tablet and ignore the book thing.
rkda 15y ago
I do hope they'll still continue their Kindle line though.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  Presumably this is going to be called the "Kindle Tab" or something like that, they've built up great brand loyalty to Kindle. I don't think they're going to discontinue a product that sells as well as the Kindle and nails a specific use-case the way it does.
- estel 15y ago
  As long as their tablets aren't using eInk, I'm sure there will remain a huge market for the existing Kindle.
ulf 15y ago
"We have seen reports that one of the major weapons Amazon wants to use against the iPad is price." Finally someone gets that this might be a good idea.
- thematt 15y ago
  Except it's not a good idea. It's never been about price. Otherwise Apple would've never succeeded with the iPhone. There are tons of cheaper smartphone options out there yet people are still flocking to the iPhone. Consumers today are trending towards quality and usability, even if it costs them slightly more.
  - dagw 15y ago
    There are tons of cheaper smartphone options out there yet people are still flocking to the iPhone. But they're also flocking in at least as large numbers to the cheaper Android phones. Amazon doesn't have to beat the iPad to win.
  - Kadrith 15y ago
    Just because they compete on price doesn't mean they will cut quality or usability. That is what I feel is wrong with the existing inexpensive tablets, they cut those corners, but Amazon isn't known for doing that.
  - jsnell 15y ago
    Nonsense. Of course it's partly about price. If it weren't about price then why doesn't Apple just raise their prices by a factor of 10 and really make a killing? Why did the Touchpad that had just totally flopped become a hot item when sold at a 80% discount? Really price is just one way to differentiate a product from others in the same niche. Features, specs, manufacturing quality, app ecosystem, design, brand, usability, etc. are others. Those tons of low-end cheap smartphones are at least as critical to Android becoming the most popular smartphone platform as the ones that instead compete with the iPhone by better specs. Right now Honeycomb tablets aren't all that good at positively differentiating themselves from the iPad in any useful way. Maybe some people desperately need some particular Android feature that can't be added to iOS in any way, or really dislike Apple. Not really a solid foundation... The closest exception is probably the Eee Transformer. The real question is whether some other manufacturer really can lower the price enough to really make it a differentiating factor.
iaskwhy 15y ago
"I just hope Amazon is able to give their Android tablet a clean and modern design. I still think that the Amazon Kindle is one of the most ugly gadgets on the market, despite its mega success." First the Windows Explorer and now this. Design is not minimalism. For something that is not touch-based, the Kindle is actually a very clean and modern device appearance-wise. And it also has great design. A good design is one that is easy to use for a given context, something the Kindle gets right most of the time. If Windows Explorer can get my mother to stop asking how to copy mp3 files from one folder to another than their redesign is a good one as well. Looking good is only a small part of designing something actually.
- achompas 15y ago
  Looking good is only a small part of designing something actually. Totally agree. After using the Kindle 3 for a few weeks, it's great because it gets out of your way. I've heard complaints about the keyboard, but it's a godsend for an active reader who takes lots of notes (like me).
- frou_dh 15y ago
  To me the look of the Kindle 3 is pretty good, but the feel of the case and buttons is of extremely cheap creaky plastic.
  - evilduck 15y ago
    My Kindle 3 feels very solid, it never creaks or flexes. The top-shell's plastic tactile sensation does literally feel cheap, but I've not had any complaints about its structual build quality or durability. The only issue I've had is that the button lettering paint wears off fairly easily.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- pistoriusp 15y ago
  If you compare the Kindle to Ram's ten principles to "good design" it definitely qualifies as a well designed product. Something that I learnt from my fiance, who is a designer, is that most people don't understand design. They understand trends: "This looks similar to all the other popular things that I see, therefore it must be well designed."
nvictor 15y ago
> Can a 7-inch tablet mess with the iPad? annnd, this is what is wrong with blogs, media, news sources today. leave the damn makers alone. if every tablet has to be compared to iPad all the time, where is the place for innovation or simply "being different"?. why can't they come with something on their own?
nnutter 15y ago
Source: http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20110831PD211.html http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20110831PD211.html
thadeus_venture 15y ago
Everyone keeps framing this as a competitor to the iPad, but it's going after a market that is not currently buying tablets at all. People who can't afford an iPad or don't want one at the current price:features ratio. If this means anything for the iPad, it's that it may expand the android tablet market enough to attract app developers, making it more sensible to produce an android tablet with high quality expensive hardware in the future, when the app eco system is more mature.
ansy 15y ago
Amazon's 7-inch will be its answer to the Nook Color, and will probably hit the same price point. It should be no more expensive than $250 and maybe as low as $199. Amazon might even use ads to reach the low point. It will be slightly faster and a more fully fledged Android device. Amazon is probably betting this is the device that will sell through the roof. Amazon's 10-inch will be more like the Kindle DX than an iPad killer. It will just be available for users with very specific use cases and sales expectations will be low. It should be priced between $400 and $500, double whatever the 7-inch costs. Amazon can't have high hopes going up against the iPad after seeing the bloodbath of 2011, but there's not a lot it can do about it either. At the very least it will make the smaller tablet look like a better bargain by putting it next to a much higher priced alternative, which I suspect is the role the Kindle DX plays more than anything else.
- achompas 15y ago
  This is not a bad position to be in. Another HN comment said it best: Amazon is the one company who can afford to sell products at a loss, since they can potentially recuperate on content sales. I'll also agree with the Amazon "Kindle Color DX" theory you put forward here. They'll cross-subsidize entry tablet costs with a higher-end model. Aside: does Apple do the same with the iPad? I imagine they don't make a lot on 16GB models; instead, I assume they make lots of money by up-selling $4-8 in flash memory for $100 per module.
ck2 15y ago
From the same article - this is all nonsense. The details about the Amazon Tablet(s) are still very vague. Amazon is doing a great job so far to keep everything secret. It is assumed that Amazon will use Android, but not even that is sure. Rumored screen sizes range from 7 over 9 to 10.1-inches. And the real article the nonsense is based on http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20110831PD211.html http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20110831PD211.html
efsavage 15y ago
I'd love a 7-10" tablet that had an e-ink screen on one side and an lcd on the other.

57 points by luigionline 15y ago

I have 30-40 eBooks (mostly PDF) which aren't very suitable for a Kindle because they're mostly photographic books and/or programming with nicely highlighted text. I'm hoping Amazon have realised that eBooks are not restricted to B&W text and are producing a device to serve that market.

mdaniel 15y ago
I am so scared that this mythical new tablet will use a glossy screen, just like almost every other color tablet out there. I say soft prayers at night that Amazon will build on the readability of the Kindle's screen and make their new device have that same soft matte finish.

noonespecial 15y ago

Let's hope they're right on the much lower price. There's a lot of places I'd like a little web tablet that I just can't risk my $500 iPad. It sure would be a disappointment if it's just another tablet that costs the same as an ipad but that's not nearly as good.

luigionline 15y ago
if Amazon manages to make their 7-inch tablet the "netbook" of tablets than it has a winner.
hullo 15y ago
I'm not sure why so many of these speculation articles don't mention the NOOK Color, which is a 7" Android-based tablet primarily concerned with reading with a secondary focus on media, that has a specialized Android app market. Price: $250. There's your target. The story with a 10" will be different, but it sounds like that's a question for next year.
- SwellJoe 15y ago
  Agreed. I played with a Nook Color a couple weeks ago and was impressed. If I could figure out a reason to add yet another piece of portable electronic junk to my collection (alongside a Nexus One, a Dell netbook dualbooting Linux or Mac OS X, a laptop, a Kindle, a DS, and probably other crud I can't remember now), it's what I'd buy. It's cheap enough to nearly be an impulse purchase, it seemed fast enough and powerful enough for what I'd want to use it for (though the netbook with a keyboard works better, since writing is mostly what I imagine I'd want to use it for), and it was cute and fun to play with. So, yeah, there's already a low price point competitor to the iPad, though it's not being marketed as such. B&N may be making a mistake in not pushing it harder as a full-featured tablet...but maybe they know its limitations better than I do. At that price point, it almost certainly is similarly specced to a very low end Android phone, so probably can't actually run a lot of bigger apps effectively.
  - joezydeco 15y ago
    B&N isn't making a mistake in not pushing it as a tablet...because it's not a tablet. It's an e-reader that just happens to have a little web browser and app store mechanism in it. B&N is selling these at a loss (or at least breakeven) hoping for the makeup in book sales. They can't be running around telling everyone that it's great as a web tablet and ignore the book thing.

rkda 15y ago

I do hope they'll still continue their Kindle line though.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
Presumably this is going to be called the "Kindle Tab" or something like that, they've built up great brand loyalty to Kindle. I don't think they're going to discontinue a product that sells as well as the Kindle and nails a specific use-case the way it does.
estel 15y ago
As long as their tablets aren't using eInk, I'm sure there will remain a huge market for the existing Kindle.

ulf 15y ago

"We have seen reports that one of the major weapons Amazon wants to use against the iPad is price." Finally someone gets that this might be a good idea.

thematt 15y ago
Except it's not a good idea. It's never been about price. Otherwise Apple would've never succeeded with the iPhone. There are tons of cheaper smartphone options out there yet people are still flocking to the iPhone. Consumers today are trending towards quality and usability, even if it costs them slightly more.
- dagw 15y ago
  There are tons of cheaper smartphone options out there yet people are still flocking to the iPhone. But they're also flocking in at least as large numbers to the cheaper Android phones. Amazon doesn't have to beat the iPad to win.
- Kadrith 15y ago
  Just because they compete on price doesn't mean they will cut quality or usability. That is what I feel is wrong with the existing inexpensive tablets, they cut those corners, but Amazon isn't known for doing that.
- jsnell 15y ago
  Nonsense. Of course it's partly about price. If it weren't about price then why doesn't Apple just raise their prices by a factor of 10 and really make a killing? Why did the Touchpad that had just totally flopped become a hot item when sold at a 80% discount? Really price is just one way to differentiate a product from others in the same niche. Features, specs, manufacturing quality, app ecosystem, design, brand, usability, etc. are others. Those tons of low-end cheap smartphones are at least as critical to Android becoming the most popular smartphone platform as the ones that instead compete with the iPhone by better specs. Right now Honeycomb tablets aren't all that good at positively differentiating themselves from the iPad in any useful way. Maybe some people desperately need some particular Android feature that can't be added to iOS in any way, or really dislike Apple. Not really a solid foundation... The closest exception is probably the Eee Transformer. The real question is whether some other manufacturer really can lower the price enough to really make it a differentiating factor.

iaskwhy 15y ago

"I just hope Amazon is able to give their Android tablet a clean and modern design. I still think that the Amazon Kindle is one of the most ugly gadgets on the market, despite its mega success." First the Windows Explorer and now this. Design is not minimalism. For something that is not touch-based, the Kindle is actually a very clean and modern device appearance-wise. And it also has great design. A good design is one that is easy to use for a given context, something the Kindle gets right most of the time. If Windows Explorer can get my mother to stop asking how to copy mp3 files from one folder to another than their redesign is a good one as well. Looking good is only a small part of designing something actually.

achompas 15y ago
Looking good is only a small part of designing something actually. Totally agree. After using the Kindle 3 for a few weeks, it's great because it gets out of your way. I've heard complaints about the keyboard, but it's a godsend for an active reader who takes lots of notes (like me).
frou_dh 15y ago
To me the look of the Kindle 3 is pretty good, but the feel of the case and buttons is of extremely cheap creaky plastic.
- evilduck 15y ago
  My Kindle 3 feels very solid, it never creaks or flexes. The top-shell's plastic tactile sensation does literally feel cheap, but I've not had any complaints about its structual build quality or durability. The only issue I've had is that the button lettering paint wears off fairly easily.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
pistoriusp 15y ago
If you compare the Kindle to Ram's ten principles to "good design" it definitely qualifies as a well designed product. Something that I learnt from my fiance, who is a designer, is that most people don't understand design. They understand trends: "This looks similar to all the other popular things that I see, therefore it must be well designed."

nvictor 15y ago

> Can a 7-inch tablet mess with the iPad? annnd, this is what is wrong with blogs, media, news sources today. leave the damn makers alone. if every tablet has to be compared to iPad all the time, where is the place for innovation or simply "being different"?. why can't they come with something on their own?

nnutter 15y ago

Source: http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20110831PD211.html http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20110831PD211.html

thadeus_venture 15y ago

Everyone keeps framing this as a competitor to the iPad, but it's going after a market that is not currently buying tablets at all. People who can't afford an iPad or don't want one at the current price:features ratio. If this means anything for the iPad, it's that it may expand the android tablet market enough to attract app developers, making it more sensible to produce an android tablet with high quality expensive hardware in the future, when the app eco system is more mature.

ansy 15y ago

Amazon's 7-inch will be its answer to the Nook Color, and will probably hit the same price point. It should be no more expensive than $250 and maybe as low as $199. Amazon might even use ads to reach the low point. It will be slightly faster and a more fully fledged Android device. Amazon is probably betting this is the device that will sell through the roof. Amazon's 10-inch will be more like the Kindle DX than an iPad killer. It will just be available for users with very specific use cases and sales expectations will be low. It should be priced between $400 and $500, double whatever the 7-inch costs. Amazon can't have high hopes going up against the iPad after seeing the bloodbath of 2011, but there's not a lot it can do about it either. At the very least it will make the smaller tablet look like a better bargain by putting it next to a much higher priced alternative, which I suspect is the role the Kindle DX plays more than anything else.

achompas 15y ago
This is not a bad position to be in. Another HN comment said it best: Amazon is the one company who can afford to sell products at a loss, since they can potentially recuperate on content sales. I'll also agree with the Amazon "Kindle Color DX" theory you put forward here. They'll cross-subsidize entry tablet costs with a higher-end model. Aside: does Apple do the same with the iPad? I imagine they don't make a lot on 16GB models; instead, I assume they make lots of money by up-selling $4-8 in flash memory for $100 per module.

ck2 15y ago

From the same article - this is all nonsense. The details about the Amazon Tablet(s) are still very vague. Amazon is doing a great job so far to keep everything secret. It is assumed that Amazon will use Android, but not even that is sure. Rumored screen sizes range from 7 over 9 to 10.1-inches. And the real article the nonsense is based on http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20110831PD211.html http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20110831PD211.html

efsavage 15y ago

I'd love a 7-10" tablet that had an e-ink screen on one side and an lcd on the other.