Posted on Wednesday, September 28 2011 @ 20:42 CEST by Thomas De MaesschalckThe device is a lot cheaper than Apple's iPad, but lacks a couple of features like 3G support, a camera and a microphone. Another drawback is that Amazon is using a modified Android 2.1 operating system, the tablet will not have access to Google's Android Market as Amazon wants to promote its own content delivery systems such as the Amazon App Store.
The Kindle Fire is available for pre-order on Amazon's website, devices are expected to ship on November 15th in the US. It's unknown when or if other countries will follow.
New Class of Kindle--"Kindle Fire"--Only $199
All The Content--Over 18 Million Movies, TV Shows, Songs, Apps, Games, Books, and Magazines
Kindle Fire puts Amazon's incredible selection of digital content at your fingertips:
* Over 100,000 movies and TV shows from Amazon Instant Video, including thousands of new releases and popular TV shows, available to stream or download, purchase or rent - all just one tap away. Amazon Prime Members enjoy instant, unlimited, commercial-free streaming of over 11,000 movies and TV shows at no additional cost. Kindle Fire comes with one free month of Amazon Prime.
* Over 17,000,000 songs from Amazon MP3, including new and bestselling albums from just $7.99 and individual songs from $0.69.
* Over 1,000,000 Kindle books, including thousands of bestsellers, children's books, comic books and cookbooks in rich color.
* 100 exclusive graphic novels, including Watchmen, the bestselling - and considered by many to be the greatest - graphic novel of all time, which has never before been available in digital format, as well as Batman: Arkham City, Superman: Earth OneGreen Lantern: Secret Origin and 96 others from DC Entertainment.
* Hundreds of magazines and newspapers - including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Wired, Elle, The New Yorker, Cosmopolitan and Martha Stewart Living - with full-color layouts, photographs, illustrations, built-in video, audio and other interactive features are available from the new Kindle Fire "Newsstand." Kindle Fire customers will enjoy an exclusive free three-month trial to 17 Condé Nast magazines, including Vanity Fair, GQ and Glamour.
* All the most popular Android apps and games, such as Angry Birds, Plants vs. Zombies, Cut the Rope and more. All apps are Amazon-tested on Kindle Fire to ensure quality and Amazon offers a new free paid app every day.
Cloud-Accelerated Web Browser - "Amazon Silk"
The Kindle Fire web browser Amazon Silk introduces a radical new paradigm - a "split browser" architecture that accelerates the power of the mobile device hardware by using the computing speed and power of the Amazon Web Services Cloud. The Silk browser software resides both on Kindle Fire and on the massive server fleet that comprises the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). With each page request, Silk dynamically determines a division of labor between the mobile hardware and Amazon EC2 (i.e. which browser sub-components run where) that takes into consideration factors like network conditions, page complexity, and cached content. The result is a faster web browsing experience, and it's available exclusively on Kindle Fire. Additional technical details are available in the Amazon Silk press release, released today at www.amazon.com/pr. To see a video about Amazon Silk go to www.amazon.com/silk.
Simple and Easy-To-Use
Amazon designed the Kindle Fire user interface from the ground up to make it easier than ever to purchase, manage, and enjoy your digital content. Just like with Kindle e-readers, Kindle Fire comes automatically pre-registered to your Amazon.com account so you can immediately start enjoying your digital content purchased from Amazon or shop for new content. All of your digital content is instantly available to enjoy and manage with a simple, consistent experience across all content types.
Free Cloud Storage
Just like Kindle e-readers, Kindle Fire offers free storage for all your Amazon digital content in the Amazon Cloud. Amazon digital content is automatically backed up for free in the Amazon Cloud's Worry-Free Archive where it's available for re-downloading anytime.
Amazon Whispersync Now for Movies & TV Too
Just like Kindle e-readers, Kindle Fire uses Amazon's popular Whispersync technology to automatically synchronize your Kindle library, last page read, bookmarks, notes, and highlights across the widest range of devices and platforms. With the introduction of Kindle Fire, Amazon is expanding this technology to include video. Start streaming a movie on your Kindle Fire, and when you get home, you can resume streaming right where you left off on your TV - avoid the frustration of needing to find your spot.
Easy to Hold in One Hand
Just like Kindle e-readers, Kindle Fire was designed to disappear so you can lose yourself in the content. Weighing in at just 14.6 ounces, Kindle Fire is small and light enough to hold in just one hand and carry everywhere you go. The lightweight, compact design makes Kindle Fire perfect for web browsing, playing games, reading and shopping on-the-go.
Brilliant Color Touchscreen
Content comes alive in rich color on a 7-inch full color LCD touchscreen that delivers 16 million colors in high resolution and 169 pixels per inch. Kindle Fire uses IPS (in-plane switching) technology - similar technology as used on the iPad, for an extra-wide viewing angle - perfect for sharing your screen with others. In addition, the Kindle Fire display is chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic, which means it is incredibly durable and will stand up to accidental bumps and scrapes.
Fast, Powerful Dual-Core Processor
Kindle Fire features a state-of-the-art dual-core processor for fast, powerful performance. Stream music while browsing the web or read books while downloading videos.
Free Month of Amazon Prime
Right out of the box, Kindle Fire users will experience the benefits that millions of Amazon Prime members already enjoy - unlimited, commercial-free, instant streaming of over 11,000 movies and TV shows with Prime Instant Video and the convenience of Free Two-Day Shipping on millions of items from Amazon.com.
Only $199
The all-new Kindle Fire - with all the content, Amazon's revolutionary cloud-accelerated browser, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, Whispersync, 14.6 ounce design that's easy to hold with one hand, brilliant color touchscreen, and a fast and powerful dual core processor - is only $199. Customers in the U.S. can pre-order Kindle Fire starting today at www.amazon.com/kindlefire and it ships November 15.
