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Amazon will unveil its Android-based Kindle Fire tablet tomorrow morning in New York City, TechCrunch confirmed.
MG Siegler, who scored the first exclusive hands-on by media, gathered some more intel about the device, which will be a 7-inch, color tablet resembling RIM’s PlayBook, ahead of the event.
Here is the bullet point summary of the device that would deign to challenge other Android tablets, if not Apple’s vaunted iPad, with its custom, Amazonian user interface and easy on-ramp to the e-commerce giant’s movies, music and books.
- Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos will show off the Kindle Fire, though it won’t ship until the second week of November, which is just in time for the Black Friday crush.
- Kindle Fire looks like a PlayBook because both were designed and built by manufacturer Quanta. Gdgt’s Ryan Block gets the nod on this detail, calling Amazon’s Kindle Fire a pejorative “PlayBook derivative.” Ouch.
- For those of you who are wincing in disgust at the lackluster PlayBook, Siegler, who played with a test model for an hour, said it is better than the PlayBook because the software is better and the content available is much better. Well, sure, but bad hardware is bad hardware. I’ll reserve judgment until Wednesday, where I’m assuming I’ll get hands-on time.
- We already know Amazon landed Fox for movies and TV shows, and several publishers are on board for magazine offerings. Siegler said big apps developers are on board. Rovio Mobile and Angry Birds, anyone?
- No native email client. Just like the PlayBook, only Amazon gets a pass. RIM has no excuse.
- Kindle Fire is powered by a dual-core OMAP chip from Texas Instruments, same as the PlayBook. Clock speeds are unclear.
- $250 to $300 price point, possibly depending on whether or not the Kindle Fire comes with the Amazon Prime two-day shipping and instant video perk, which is normally $79 a year.
What are you most excited about regarding the Kindle Fire? What do you think it’s missing?