Amazon is working on five to six new Kindle Fire tablets (including a 10 inch model), will be released by September

Kindle Fire, the 7 inch tab that took the tablet world by semi-storm in 2011, may be no longer be an only child. It is being reported by Reuters that an executive at Staples, a retailer that sells the Kindle Fire, has revealed there will be “five or six tablet SKUs” from Amazon, meaning there will be five or six new Amazon tablets. Among those five or six, there will be a 10 inch version. Presumably all those tablets will have the Kindle Fire branding.

It should be noted 5-6 SKUs does not necessarily mean Amazon will release five to six different tablets. It very well could be that Amazon is planning on refreshing the 7 inch Kindle fire and introducing a new 10 inch Kindle Fire. Each of these two tablets could have different models (e.g. a 16 GB model, a 32 GB model, a WiFi-only model, a WiFi and 3G model, etc.) which is what results in the 5-6 different SKUs. Or maybe Amazon really is going to release 5-6 different tabs, who knows.

There is no information on pricing as of yet but the original Kindle Fire sold for a market-changing $199. We do, however, have rumors that state the tabs will be released later this year. According to AllThingsD, Amazon will release the new tablets in Q3 2012 meaning by the end of September.

Originally dubbed an ‘iPad killer’, the original Kindle Fire was aimed at a different market niche than the iPad. With a new 10 incher, however, Amazon will not only be competing with Google’s Nexus 7 but also with Apple’s iPad and, if rumors are true, iPad mini. If Amazon can manage to undercut Google and Apple on price then we may be seeing the start of a tablet price war. And Ashraf may finally grab his first tablet. (What a cheapskate.)

[via ArsTechnica]

Related Posts