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Amazon Reportedly Aiming For the Low End With a Loss-Leader $50 Tablet

Posted by timothy on from the horses-for-courses dept.

Amazon has been dogged with criticism for its high-end, somewhat oddball phone, but done rather better with its high-end Fire tablets, and has mostly defined the market for e-ink book-reading devices with its long-lived Kindle series. Now, according to a report in the WSJ echoed by Fortune (and by Ars Technica and many others), the company is said to be working on a tablet aimed at the low end of the market, with a 6-inch screen, a mono speaker, and a tiny pricetag -- which could be as low as $50. "At the bottom end of the range at least, the devices won’t be priced to make a profit," writes Fortune. "The dirt-cheap price tag is intended to maximise the reach of its e-book and Amazon Prime video streaming content."

14 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Some tablets have stereo speakers? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 3, Insightful

    >> a mono speaker

    I just read that and thought, "tablets have stereo speakers"? Isn't that what headphones are for? Would having stereo speakers really make a difference on a 9-inch wide device?

    1. Re:Some tablets have stereo speakers? by advocate_one · · Score: 5, Funny

      and sellotape these to each speaker: http://www.machinadynamica.com...

      --
      Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
  2. Will it read non-Amazon-sourced books? by TWX · · Score: 2

    My wife loves the classics, pretty much all of which are in the public domain, and have been put into some kind of e-book format at Project Gutenberg. I read a lot of Baen books from their free e-book library that one can download in several formats and often come with the paper books on a disc in the back. If this thing will work for that then we'll probably get one. Otherwise, probably not.

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    1. Re:Will it read non-Amazon-sourced books? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's the danger for Amazon. People get them and use them for free stuff. Maybe install Cyanogen instead of the Amazon crapware.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:Will it read non-Amazon-sourced books? by ncc74656 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Use Calibre to convert from .epub (or whatever) to .azw and upload to Amazon. That's what I did when I needed to keep bookmarks synced between iOS and Android devices (before Google Play Books came along), and it'd also work with Kindle devices.

      --
      20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
    3. Re:Will it read non-Amazon-sourced books? by ardmhacha · · Score: 2

      The percentage of buyers who install Cyanogen on these devices will be very small.

    4. Re:Will it read non-Amazon-sourced books? by TWX · · Score: 2

      This is why:

      Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle

      Fool me once, shame on you...

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    5. Re:Will it read non-Amazon-sourced books? by ssam · · Score: 3, Informative

      Cyanogen Inc and CyanogenMod are separate things.

  3. And another cheap tablet to root! by hajo · · Score: 2

    Seriously, you know people are going to be all over this and root with some version of some alternate OS. Either android or one of the tablet Linuxes.

    --
    Hajo Monogamy: Belief so strong that millions of people end perfectly good relationships in order to start a new one.
  4. Loss leader by tedgyz · · Score: 2

    No worries. They'll make it up in volume.

    --
    "No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
    1. Re:Loss leader by tedgyz · · Score: 2

      Geez. I guess I should have put those sarcasm tags in there. I thought /. readers would get the joke.

      --
      "No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
  5. Parts are cheap, keep pushing the prices down by Katatsumuri · · Score: 2

    I think some no-name Android tablets are already available at about $50 price, but this one should set the standard in value per dollar and push other major vendors to shift their prices down. This may also affect laptop and smartphone prices a little.

  6. Not a realistic danger... by Junta · · Score: 2

    Sure, there will be some of those folks.Overwhelmingly people just take defaults even when it doesn't take much effort to change, unless the default is very clearly perceived as horrible.

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  7. Re:Amazon owns Woot.com by willworkforbeer · · Score: 4, Funny

    In honor of the good old days of Woot, I searched Amazon for the infamous "Bag O' Crap". Sure enough... http://amzn.com/B0092FJDA2

    --
    Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..