Yesterday Amazon went official with its first touch-screen tablet called the Kindle Fire. This came alongside a new range of Touch enabled Kindles that still feature a e-ink display. However with a dual-core processor and 7″ IPS display the Fire really puts the tablet market on Fire.
We saw how the HP Touchpad stocks evaporated when the price went down to $99. Of course that was a full fledged tablet and a fire sale, but price point of below $200 is a killer value proposition. Android tablets are plenty and they either compete with each other with similar interfaces or the Apple iPad. What Amazon has done is, it got out of the rat race. Amazon has little interest in selling hardware, they have more than enough books and other digital content to sell.
The Tablet Market
For the past year or so we have been debating if there is a real market for Tablets. Is it just a luxury or more than that? I have been using the iPad for all mobile internet needs and apps, for one simple reason. The smartphone battery doesn’t last all day! But standalone does the tablet add any real utility?
Tablets as we know is a good to have luxury, Amazon with the Kindle Fire and all its content network makes it a ‘must have’. It may not offer all the frills of a regular tablet, but to the real audience, the ones who want to consume content on a tablet, the Kindle Fire is very very attractive.