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Amazon's Android Tablet Expected This Fall
According to the New York Post — among many others — Amazon is expected to launch its long-anticipated color tablet in late September or October, and the device is slated to sell for 'hundreds less' than the iPad, which implies a price of $300 or less. MSNBC says much the same, but adds some (their words) "generic looking mockups" to illustrate. I expect millions of Kindle owners will happily skip the added weight and shorter battery life of a full-fledged tablet, but it's good to have options.
The Kindle goes for weeks without being careful about battery life. One of the cool things about e-ink is that the image persists passively, so when you turn the page, it just powers up for a moment to flip then goes back to sleep.
I have a kindle, and it's a fantastic device. I'm certainly not an "Amazon hipster" (I didn't even know there was such a thing) I don't buy anything from the amazon store, my kindle is rooted and I do with it as I please. It's best features are not found anywhere else: The screen is amazing and I charge it once a MONTH at most. I read every day and the kindle lets me blaze through books. I have it filled with automotive service manuals, emergency guides, maps, all of which combine make it perfect for emergencies in which the power could go out rendering all other devices useless.
I'm sure there are people out there that buy them just so they can sit in starbucks and look cool, but that's not the magic of the device. If they can improve the screen by adding color and improved refresh rates, add more tablet features like improved web browsing, some more basic applications like a calendar, calculator, maybe even GPS, while keeping the battery life significantly longer than other devices, I think they'll destroy the tablet market. All this superfluous stuff people are doing with tablets right now, like games, videos, etc, are just driving the market in the wrong direction. High power use, low battery life... Phones already do all that, we don't need a big cellphone. We need a computerize book/map/encyclopedia/notebook. THAT is where tablets will win big in the long run and the only company doing that right now is Amazon.