Kindle Fire Set To Get Refresh After Summer 2012, Say Reports

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It’s a good news, bad news sort of situation for all of you out there who got a Kindle Fire, as word emerges about the possible future versions of the popular tablet. The good news is, any new version will take a while to get here. The bad news is it will be somewhat better than the current.

The new version, according to the current reports, says that a ten inch Kindle Fire won’t arrive on shelves until sometime in 2012, and even then, the second half of 2012. But when it does come, it’s going to represent a pretty substantial improvement over the original design. Not only will it offer up a ten inch display, according to reports, but it will also boast an Nvidia quad-core Tegra 3 processor, otherwise known as Kal-El. The device is set to be built by the folks at Foxconn, who for their part haven’t confirmed or denied that they’ve got the orders to build them already.

It’s a pretty substantial improvement, though whether or not you’ll notice much depends somewhat on your use for the thing. I mean, if you’re mainly using it as an ereader and backup web surfer you might not notice the extra power a Kal-El throws into the mix. But I can see it being helpful for video and things like that, so if you’re using it for the full set of features, then you probably would. And of course some might find a ten inch tablet tougher to deal with one handed than a seven inch model, but that’s something of a personal issue in the end. Plus, with the iPad 3 waiting in the wings (not to mention a possible entry level iPad), it’s not surprising to see that Amazon wants to step up its tablet game a bit in response.

No word yet on pricing or release dates, which is appropriate as they haven’t even started building the thing yet, but what do you guys think about all this? Would you be interested in a ten inch Kindle Fire packing a Kal-El processor? Or is your seven inch model taking care of business nicely? Either way, we want to hear from you, so head on down to the comments section and tell us what you think!