Report: Amazon’s Kindle Tablet to cost $250, more details leak

TechCrunch’s MG Siegler has come up with quite the exclusive this afternoon, which includes almost all of the details on Amazon’s new Kindle Tablet. TechCrunch wasn’t able to post pictures, but they reassure us they played with it — and they said it’s quite the delight, calling it “solid“. Citing the report, the 7-inch version will be released sometime by the end of the year for $250, and if it’s a success, the 10-inch will launch sometime in Q1. As for the operating system, it will be running Android, but not the kind you and I are used to.

The specs for this device are reported as follows: a 7-inch screen, single-core chip, modified Android, no physical buttons, no camera, and 6GB of internal storage (MG notes some of this is speculation). Did you read that no camera part? Wow.

Google’s Android Market is nowhere to be found. In fact, no Google app is anywhere to be found. This is Android fully forked. My understanding is that the Kindle OS was built on top of some version of Android prior to 2.2. And Amazon will keep building on top of that of that over time. In other words, this won’t be getting “Honeycomb” or “Ice Cream Sandwich” — or if it does, users will never know it because that will only be the underpinnings of the OS. Any visual changes will be all Amazon.

Continue after the break:

Even though it features Android, the device doesn’t include any hint of Google — not even the Android Market. The UI of the device is blue, orange, and black. MG details the homescreen as being an iTunes like carousel that guides you through all of your content. Below that is a dock to pin your favorite items, but when you switch to horizontal view it disappears. Despite being without any physical buttons you can tap the screen once to go back to the homescreen.

There is obviously deep Amazon integration, with the Amazon Appstore being the main source for apps. The video app is Android Instant Video service, which makes a lot of sense. And of course, the web browser looks WebKit based with tabs at the top.

Read more details over at TechCrunch.