It appears that a tablet produced by Amazon is on the cards. At a recent interview, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezo was asked if Amazon will make a tablet in the near future, and he responded to those queries in an ambiguous manner, giving no specific detail about a product of this category. However, he confirmed that such a product was being developed by the company. He also added that if Amazon ends up making such a tablet device, its focus will be on providing a good reading experience to its customers as this concept is the core of the company.
Some sources close to the company have started the rumors that the product will actually be out before the holiday season this year and also that the display used will be the same as those used in devices like the Galaxy Tab and the Nook. They also revealed that the original RFQ had demanded that the screen should be able to switch between a color LCD and an easy to read black and white e-ink like display; however the two vendors who are already developing a screen of this type said that these displays will not be ready until at least 2012 or early 2013.
This forced Amazon to choose the only available option for now, a 10 inch LCD screen. Reportedly, the device will also be available in a 7 inch model. Further speculations are rife that it will run on the newer quad core version of Nvidia’s Tegra chip and use Android as its operating system.
It is interesting to see Amazon enter the market which is already becoming very crowded. There were at least 75 new tablets introduced at CES 2011 and there are more to follow, especially as tablets are the rage with tech companies all over the world.
Amazon’s decision to enter the tablet market is strategically important as well as just introducing tablets with great hardware without a connection to good software and services doesn’t cut the slack for any vendor in the market today. It now appears that of all the competition that Apple currently has in this sphere, Amazon might turn out to be the closest as it already has its own books, movies, music and rented content offerings. It even has its own Android store which will serve its Android tablet very well. Its cloud based storage service will also provide a great opportunity for Amazon to bring this concept into mainstream.
