Amazon is expected to launch its much-anticpated color Kindle tablet on Wednesday, offering a cheaper rival to Apple’s iPad, according to new reports.
The device, which will expand the Kindle from a traditional e-book reader to a multifunctional digital media tool, is rumoured to sell for just $250, including a subscription to the firm’s loyalty discount scheme ‘Amazon Prime’.
The rumoured launch will take place at an event has been scheduled in New York on Wednesday evening.
The Kindle Tablet is hotly anticipated because Amazon already sells digital books, films and music, and as such is better placed than traditional hardware manufacturers to challenge Apple’s iPad tablet. Amazon is likely to use a heavily adapted version of Google’s Android platform.
The Kindle could sell for approximately half the price of an iPad, although the first models are likely to use a 7” screen rather than the iPad’s 10”.
Apple has been keen to galvanise app developers into working on its platform, but Amazon is likely to continue its Kindle strategy of using the new device to encourage media sales, rather than sales of the new Kindle itself. An advertising-subsidised Kindle is already sold in the USA.
