The Kindle Fire has been officially unveiled by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. The new seven-inch Android-powered tablet has stunned the market with its $199 price tag.
The gadget is priced well below even half the price of the cheapest available iPad.
World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck says the Kindle Fire is the device that may just turn the tablet computer market into more than a one-horse race.
During the launch presentation, Bezos also unveiled a low-end Kindle e-reader (priced at $79), as well as a touch-screen version, called the Kindle Touch, for $99. The 3G-enabled Kindle Touch will go on sale for $149.
“In style and substance, it was clear that Apple had been directly targeted,” says Goldstuck.
Goldstuck says Amazon has “whammied” Apple and the market with the low price point for the Kindle Fire.
“It is clear that price is the big differentiator in the market, and the reason no other tablet manufacturer has been able to compete with the iPad - even where their devices were regarded as almost as good.”
What's new?
In terms of basic features, the Kindle Fire has a seven-inch, multi-touch, 1 024x600MP display, a dual-core processor and 8GB of built-in storage. The new tablet, however, does not have 3G, a camera or a microphone.
One surprising feature is the new native “Amazon Silk” browser, which is said to rethink browsing in the age of cloud computing. Silk uses a "split browser" architecture that is said to accelerate the power of the mobile device hardware by using the computing speed and power of the Amazon Web Services Cloud.
“With each page request, Silk dynamically determines a division of labour between the mobile hardware and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud,” says Amazon, adding that it takes into consideration factors like network conditions, page complexity, and cached content.
Best build
The new tablet is built by Quanta Computer, the same company behind the build of the BlackBerry PlayBook.
“While some American analysts equate the BlackBerry PlayBook's poor performance in the market with poor design, the truth is that the business and apps model of the device destroyed its chances,” says Goldstuck.
“The actual build is among the best in the tablet market, and no bad starting point for a device that can compete on price and apps.”
Goldstuck says Amazon's well-evolved online retail and content offerings put the company in a strong position to compete with the Apple App Store.
“Its own version has leveraged Amazon's massive customer base to make it one of the most powerful outside of Apple, and that makes an Amazon tablet an instant contender in the apps space.
“The tablet market in 2012 is clearly going to be a tale of two tablets - and maybe more, if other manufacturers learn the basic price rule,” says Goldstuck.
A new breed
Strategy Worx MD Steven Ambrose says the Kindle Fire is a good indication of how the tablet market will evolve, with different tablets tied to different cloud-based services for various tightly controlled services.
However, Ambrose says the Kindle Fire doesn't actually compete with current tablets.
“The Kindle Fire is a new type of tablet and cannot really be compared to more fully speced tablets. In the same way the current tablets are not truly replacements for laptops,” says Ambrose.
“The Kindle is clearly a big push into the media consumption space and is a clear, logical and focused product in that space.”
Ambrose notes that there may be some overlap where consumers only purchase tablets for media consumption. “In this space, the Kindle with its cloud-based media services will be a big competitor.”
US limitations
While Ambrose says the price point of the Kindle Fire will shake up the market, he notes there are a number of lower-end Android-based tablets at or close to that price with “nominally far greater functionality”.
“The key differentiator for the Kindle Fire will be its seamless access to the Amazon cloud-based music, movies and magazines.”
According to Ambrose, the fact that the new tablet is currently not available outside of the US reflects its focus on music and movies.
“The chances it will be available outside of the US in the near future are not great and will essentially limit the product to the US,” says Ambrose.
“Unlike the iPad, which first came out in the US and then became available in other markets, the tight integration of the movie and music elements of the Fire will make it very difficult to actually use outside of the US.”
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