Amazon Kindle Fire Tablet to be Revealed on Wednesday

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Tablet enthusiasts that are looking for a non-iPad solution for their needs are probably hoping that Amazon will unveil one such device on September 28, or on Wednesday, when the company has scheduled a special press event.

And it looks like that’s exactly what Amazon will announce, according to TechCrunch, who had previous access to the actual device.

We referred to the device as the Kindle Tab, long before any details about it were reveled, and then as the Amazon Kindle, once specs and features started to appear. It now looks like the final name of the device will be something entirely different, the Kindle Fire, to differentiate the new product from the current Kindle eReader line.

The Kindle Fire will ship in the second week of November, or just in time for the upcoming Christmas shopping season. The device is expected to look like the PlayBook as the same company that designed and built RIM’s tablet, Quanta.

According to TechCrunch, the Kindle Fire trumps the PlayBook, despite being similar when it comes to physical aspect:

But having played with a DVT [Kindle Fire] model myself, I can assure you that it’s better than the PlayBook because the software is better and, more importantly, the content available is much better. Amazon has built their own custom version of Android (that looks nothing like Android) and it utilizes their own Android Appstore.

Besides applications, the Kindle Fire will get plenty of movies, music and books as Amazon is probably one of the few company that can fight Apple when it comes to content sources for mobile devices.

Other specs and features of the Kindle Fire, previously unrevealed, suggest the device will not have a native email client, but one will be available in the Appstore. Also worth mentioning is the 1.2GHz TI OMAP dual-core processor the Kindle FIre is said to sport. The CPU still needs confirmation, but it appears to be a lot more powerful than the single-core 800MHz OMAP chip found aboard the Nook Color, an eReader some people already see as a Kindle Fire rival.

At the same time word on the street is that Barnes & Noble will launch a Nook Color 2, a powerful device that will sport a 1.2GHz OMAP chip and run Android 2.3 Gingerbread. The Kindle Fire will run a custom Android OS based on Android 2.1, so it will be interesting to see these two devices compete for tablet/eReader market share.

Anyone buying the Kindle Fire?