Amazon Kindle Tablet

Based on this article, we know quite a bit more what to expect.  And I expect, sadly, I suppose, that it will blow the doors off the Nook Color.

Amazon Kindle Tablet

Why do I say that?  The size will be the same, touch screen, running an Android OS that Amazon has its way with.  The price will be the same $250.  So what's the big deal?  Amazon is going to promote it like mad and offer a year's subscription to Amazon Prime which is about $80 for the year.  I've done Prime and I was very positive about it.  You get free streaming video.  Hello,  if I got that on my Nook I'd be thrilled.  So that's essentially $100 off.

What Amazon does well they do very well.  You purchase something and they get it right to you.  Last week during the hurricane, I bought an emergency radio and it came 2 days later.  A month ago I bought a can of chestnut puree.  Why buy that from a bookstore?  Because the price was less.  The can was more expensive, but the shipping--because of the Amazon Prime Trial--was free.  I bought the macro lens and returned it with no emotional upset.

To have access to shopping from your reader, streaming video, music and I'm sure other things not yet revealed will make me consider selling the Nook and buying a Kindle Tab.

What will this do to Christmas book sales, kiddies?

Online retail giant Amazon has hinted that it plans to offer its own tablet computer running Google's Android operating system, perhaps as early as October. The research firm Forrester said recently that it expects Amazon to sell 3 million to 5 million tablets in the fourth quarter this year if it can keep up with the demand.

The tablet seems smartly designed to enhance Amazon’s “razor and blades” strategy, which creates a virtuous, reinforcing link between Amazon’s reading device and content. It should be attractive to e-reader buyers. It might well recapture the e-reader device leadership position from the Nook, and perhaps lessen the lost of e-reader-focused buyers to the iPad.  And the bundled Amazon Prime membership should enhance Amazon’s larger retail relationship with its tablet owners.
All in all, the Kindle tablet seems well-positioned to strengthen Amazon’s market position.

Everything Amazon does is to strengthen their position so we know this is going to create waves.


AFAIC, it's expensive.  We need a great reader for under $100.  We need a reader a kid can forget on the bus and no one loses sleep over it.  After all, this economy is not great.  People are in financial difficulty even when there are still people employed at great salaries not realizing millions of people are unable to find a job.

Also AFAIC I'm rather have a Samsung Galaxy but that really is too expensive.  I can shop at Amazon with my Nook.

But I think Santa's elves are building and designing these gadgets.  My fingers are too big for the little pretend buttons.  So someone should consider humans are using these things and they don't have a stylus in hand.  That would be an interesting thing though, a retractable stylus built in...