$149 Amazon Kindle Fire Tablet/E-Reader Coming?

At around the same time Apple will unveil its iPhone 5 and perhaps an iPad Mini, Amazon is likely to launch its next generation 7-inch LCD color tablet/e-reader, an updated Kindle Fire, with a higher screen resolution but at the same $199 price as the current Kindle Fire.

But that may also mean the price of the current Kindle Fire (or a new special entry-level Kindle Fire) could collapse to $149.

A $149 Kindle Fire would make the already best-selling Android tablet just $10 more than Barnes Noble’s popular but functionality-limited Nook Glow e-ink e-reader.

A report from Taipei in DigiTimes speculates Amazon will launch a new and/or updated line of Kindle e-book readers this fall, including a new $199 top-of-the-line Fire with 1280 x 800 pixel resolution; the current Kindle offers just 1024 x 600 pixel resolution.

More pixels would mean greater readability in smaller text sizes; the current Kindle provides 169 pixels per inch (ppi); by comparison, Apple’s Retina iPad 3 packs in 264 pixels per inch, rendering smaller type more readable. A 1280 x 800 display would presumably boost Fire’s ppi count. Being able to read smaller text means more text on a page, which means fewer virtual page turns.

More memory?

Hopefully, Amazon will also add a microSD card slot and/or more built-in memory to a new Kindle Fire. The current Kindle supplies merely 6 GB of on-board storage for user content (8 GB total), room enough for just “80 apps, plus 10 movies or 800 songs” according to Amazon. A micro SD card slot (such as offered by the Barnes Noble Nook Color) enables you to add additional storage for a more realistic and copious collection of apps, movies, photos and music.

But a $149 Kindle Fire is quite a bargain compared to other e-book readers. Will a $149 Kindle Fire force Barnes Noble to drop Glow’s price to $99? Will new Amazon e-ink readers offer even more for less? Does this mean Amazon is abandoning or shifted rumored plans to build an 8.9- or 10.1-inch Kindle tablet? Will a $149 Kindle Fire force Apple to rethink size/shape/price of its rumored iPad Mini?

Stay tuned – but I’d hold off on any replacement tablet/e-book reader purchases for the time being. You may be able to save a few bucks if you wait to see what happens in a few months.

The News Source: http://tech.lifegoesstrong.com/article/149-amazon-kindle-fire-tablete-reader-coming