Amazon Kindle Tablet Revealed to Cost $250 & Launch in November

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I have often referred to this Amazon tablet as the “Amazon Kindle Tab” and boy was I close. It turns out that the tablet it’s called “simply” the Amazon Kindle, which makes plenty of sense for the company as it would certainly want to hold on and keep using that famous trademark.

TechCrunch apparently had access to this yet-to-be-released device and they found out various details about the tablet. The Amazon Kindle “it’s not like any Kindle you’ve see before.” In fact here are some of its specs and features, as confirmed so far by the report:

• 7-inch capacitive touchscreen backlit full-color display (no e-ink)
• two-finger multitouch
• Android OS with custom Amazon UI interface – Kindle OS built on top of Android version prior to Android 2.2 which Amazon will continue to develop
• BlackBerry PlayBook-like form factor
• No physically buttons on the surface of the device
• Single-core chip – not confirmed
• 6GB of storage
• no SD card slot (yet)
• Wi-Fi Support
• microUSB support
• no camera
• No Google Android market support
• No Google Apps
• Kindle app – eBook reader
• Amazon Instant Video Player – movies
• Amazon Cloud Player – music
• Amazon Android Appstore support

What’s most interesting about this device is the fact that Amazon is totally ignoring Google’s progress with Android. And the Google apps. The device will have its own custom UI and a Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade won’t be possible, which will certainly annoy some Android users. Although that’s what rooting is for, isn’t it, folks?

But here are more details about the UI, which appears to be very interesting:

And this is where things get really interesting. As anticipated, Amazon has forked Android to build their own version for the Kindle. Simply put: it looks nothing like the Android you’re used to seeing.

The interface is all Amazon and Kindle. It’s black, dark blue, and a bunch of orange. The main screen is a carousel that looks like Cover Flow in iTunes which displays all the content you have on the device. This includes books, apps, movies, etc. Below the main carousel is a dock to pin your favorite items in one easy-to-access place. When you turn the device horizontally, the dock disappears below the fold.

Above the dock is the status bar (time, battery, etc) and this doubles as a notification tray. When apps have updates, or when new subscriptions are ready for you to view, they appear here. The top bar shows “YOUR NAME’s Kindle” and then the number of notifications you have in bright orange. It looks quite nice.

The Amazon Kindle is expected to cost $250 and to launch in late November. Amazon is said to offer a free Amazon Prime subscription with each Amazon Kindle purchase. Most Kindle reader models will continue to coexist with the tablet and Amazon is expected to launch a higher-end 10-inch Android tablet in Q1 2012.

While the imminent launch of the Kindle will probably not make a serious dent in Apple’s market share it could certainly gain points at the expense of all other Android tablet creators. Not only will this tablet be very affordable, priced at half the price of the cheapest iPad / Android tablet, and we all saw what a cheap tablet can do to the crowds, but it also has an entire ecosystem ready to support the tablet buyer.

Amazon is providing, like Apple, plenty of content: music, movies, apps and eBooks. It also have a huge distribution arm and plenty of potential Kindle-loving customers. Maybe RIM should get a copy of Amazon’s playbook, pun totally intended, when it comes to having a sound strategy for selling a tablet, a device some people say we don’t actually need, but one that can sell in the zillions. Just like Apple.

Before the first iPad was launched I kept saying that the Kindle and similar readers will die. I was partly right because other than the Kindle and the Nook other readers have had a really tough life in stores. Amazon was able to make certain changes to its marketing approach to counter the effect of the iPad, and continued to sell millions of eBook readers while Apple was selling millions of iPads. But Amazon also knew it can’t rely just on a regular black-and-white tablet-like device that has limited possibilities of satisfying our boredom-fighting needs. And so it worked and worked on the Amazon Kindle, an affordable table with potential of amassing impressive sales right from the get-go. Unless it fails miserably.

I can’t wait to see a Google official reaction on this new Android device that’s not going to look like an Android device at all. While we wait, anyone interested in buying a new tablet from Amazon?