Rumors have been surfacing about a possible Amazon tablet for some time, but until now, there has been very little to go on. The New York Post is now reporting, however, that Amazon is set to enter the tablet market with a $299 Android tablet.
The new tablet is expected to arrive in late September or early October, according to sources with knowledge about the matter, a price $200 lower than the cheapest new-in-box iPad.
Amazon is being agressive in their projections with the tablets, and supposedly plans on shipping 5 million of the tablets this year. While the tablet will be Android based, and is rumored to come in 7-inch and 10-inch versions, it’s likely that it will also run an Amazon-customized version of Android and will only be able to access the Amazon Appstore.
I use to think that if anyone could even begin to make a dent against the iPad, it’d be Amazon, but every device they have produced so far has miserably failed my expectations. Further, if rumors regarding this tablet are to come true, a cheap and limited tablet running a closed version of what is supposed to be an open platform just doesn’t sound that appealing to me.
I might buy one when they go down to $50 on “fire sale” pricing, however.
