Amazon, today, launched a brand new version of its 8-inch Android-based Kindle Fire tablet. The Kindle Fire 8 Reader’s Edition comes with some software and service benefits bookworms will love, and ships with an attractive leather case. It’s available to pre-order for $249 from Amazon now…
Along with all of its usual wide-ranging discounts, Amazon has slashed the prices of its own hardware for Black Friday. Despite the fact that its newest Android-based tablets were already crazily good value for money, you can now pick them up even cheaper. Prices now start as low as $35 for a Kindle Fire tablet, while the special Kids Edition and HD 6 have seen generous discounts too…
A press render of Amazon’s upcoming 10-inch Kindle Fire tablet has been leaked ahead of its alleged launch. Although we’re light on specs, the renders show the (rather uninspiring) design of the next Kindle Fire. The image comes from well-known and usually reliable leaker, Evan Blass on Twitter.
From the renders, it appears the next Kindle Fire will have a completely flat front and back, with a slightly more angled, metallic frame around the edges. We can just about make out the power/sleep key on the top edge as well as the front and rear camera. Amazon’s branding is expectedly prominent, although the software is a completely different story. If the render is accurate, it looks like Amazon’s new software will be much more in line with standard Android. Or, at the very list, Amazon software disguised as standard Android. Whatever the software is, it’s a far cry from Amazon’s previous efforts.
Previous Kindle Fire tablets have featured a cover flow-like user interface, pushing Amazon apps and content to the forefront, similar to the UI found on the Amazon Fire TV and Stick. If Evan’s leak is anything close to the finished product (which it normally is), it’ll certainly make a refreshing change from a user experience perspective.It almost certainly has something to do with having fewer staff to work on skins after the job cuts recently. Perhaps it’s a lesson learned by Amazon after the catastrophic failure that was the Fire Phone. A shift to a more familiar UI will surely make the product less confusing to regular consumers.
We don’t yet have a release date, price or specs for the 10-inch tablet, but there have been rumors of a $50 6-inch model which is expected to hit the market in time for the holiday season. Both tablets will likely be announced and released at the same time to take advantage of the busy Q4 shipping period.
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From 9to5Toys.com where we are rounding up all the best Black Friday deals we have two huge headliners on the almost never discounted Nest product line (that Google picked up along with iPod-father Tony Fadell earlier this year):
The Nest Learning Thermostat (2nd generation) for $199 shipped. That’s $50 below list and the best price we’ve ever seen.
You can find it at Amazon, Best Buy, Lowes and Abt for $199 for a limited time.
The Dropcam Wireless HD Video Monitoring Camera can be found for $99.99 with free shipping. That’s $50 below list and the lowest price we have ever seen on this cloud-based camera/recording system.
Available for $$99 ($50 off) at Amazon and Best Buy.
With a 107° degree field of view and 4x zoom, Dropcam keeps you connected with people, places and pets in sharp 720p HD video.
Head over to 9to5Toys for the Best Black Friday deals on the web. A little more background on Nest:
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It seems that Amazon is finally throwing in the towel with its Fire Phone. After the hype leading up to its launch, Fire Phone has been struggling to stay afloat. It’s best to think of the Fire Phone as a smaller version of a Kindle Fire tablet, but with a few extra gimmicks and features thrown in along with a free year of Amazon Prime.
The Fire Phone may have been a disappointment to the market, but Amazon isn’t giving up on its attempt to push it into the hands of consumers this holiday season. The Fire Phone can now be purchased unlocked and off-contract for only $199 (32GB Version)…
The latest monthly build of CyanogenMod 11 is now available to download for several Android devices, ranging from the HTC One (M8) and HTC Evo 4G LTE to the Samsung Galaxy S4 and Samsung Galaxy Note 3. CyanogenMod 11 M12 download links should be added for other smartphones and tablets over the coming days.
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Is the Amazon Fire Phone simmering out? Recent estimates reached by The Guardian pegged the device at having sold less than 35,000 units and today Amazon and AT&T are bringing down the price to 99¢ on a two year contract less than two months after launch. The device was previously priced at $199 for 32GB with a two year commitment, which many observed was a rather high price point for a not-so-remarkable handset mostly differentiated by its 3D effect and Amazon Prime services…
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Microsoft announced today that its cloud-based OneDrive storage application is now available for the Kindle Fire and Fire Phone via the Amazon Appstore. Similar to Google Drive, Microsoft’s online storage solution lets users share photos, videos, documents and other items with other people directly from their smartphone or tablet.
Amazon is currently testing an all you can eat subscription-based ebook and audio book service called “Kindle Unlimited.” A product landing page spotted by GigaOM revealed that the unannounced service will provide customers with access to over 600,000 titles for $10 a month. While subscription-based e-book services for smartphones and tablets already exist, Amazon has a vast number of resources that could quickly make the company a force in this relatively untapped market.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhKZ0fQhbeg]
Amazon recently surprised us with its Fire TV set-top box, offering a native solution for customers to stream movies, music, and even play games. Fire TV will only set you back $99, and in my opinion, it’s just what Amazon needed. Instead of relying on third-party streaming solutions, Amazon now has the power to take its media services in a new direction. Take a look at our overview video above to see Fire TV in action.
Image: digitaltrends.com
Amazon’s TV box, which the company is believed to have been working on for around a year, is to be launched next month, according to unnamed content distribution sources cited by re/code. It had originally been expected to be launched in time for last year’s holiday sales.
People I’ve talked to who are partnering with Amazon believe the company is aiming for a March rollout […]
Sources tell me Amazon’s box will be powered by Google’s Android operating system, which is also not a surprise — Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets use a “forked” version of Android …
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Amazon has never been a company to provide specific sales numbers, but their just-issued press release shows us that Android, Kindle and Chromebooks dominated their holiday shopping season. Surprisingly, or perhaps not surprising at all is the Chromecast, which is the best seller in the Computers and Accessories category outselling the company’s own Kindle Fire lineup as well as Apple TV and the Roku 3 Streaming Media player.
Amazon’s upcoming smartphone that may or may not truly exist is now set to launch in the first half of 2014 according to Digitimes. The world’s most prolific source of insider information with a track record that hits around 50/50 says Primax Electronics has “obtained orders from Amazon for compact camera modules for use in smartphones to be launched in first-half 2014.”
Amazon is pulling out all the stops to get a Kindle Fire HDX into your hands this holiday season with a brand new payment plan. Amazon unveiled the new plan (as discovered by PC Mag) in the past 24 hours that will allow customers to split the payments across a total of 270 days from the initial date of purchase.
Kindle’s Fire tablet lineup is already among the best tablet options geared toward kids and Amazon is boosting that message with some new offerings. The newest update adds more educational and goal-oriented options to make sure kids are getting their work complete before moving to play time.
Far be it from me to pass judgement on which Android tablet is the true “gamers” tablet, but a new survey via AllThingsD suggests the Kindle Fire is the people’s choice for gaming. According to a survey conducted this past June by IDC and App Annie, Amazon’s Kindle tablets received around 12% of the votes, far more than all other Android tablets combined.
Note: Strangely, Best Buy still offers the best deal on the Kindle Fire 7 HD with it starting at $99.99
Hello Amazon and two very good, no “unprecedented” deals on two of the internet most popular Kindle Fire tablets. Announced late last night, Amazon is taking $50 off the Kindle Fire HDX 7″, down from to $179 and the Kindle Fire HD 16GB now $119. The full deal is listed below along with links to where you should be whipping out your credit cards. If you’re in the Amazon ecosystem like myself, these are some pretty good deals and while its possible Amazon will discount again before Christmas day, why wait?
I’m sure we’re all “tired” to hear about the tablet/PC debate and which format will outsell one another next year. That being said, a new Canalys report caught my eye as it projects that in 2014 tablets will account for 50 percent of the PC market. I consider projections that indicate tablets will become half of the desktop, notebook, and tablet devices that make up the entire PC market to be notable because of the sheer size.
Amazon’s recently released new line of Kindle Fire hardware and 3.0 Fire OS software is certainly making inroads thanks in no small part to Mayday. Well, Amazon isn’t wasting any time making improvements as they introduce Fire OS 3.1 this morning which includes Goodreads integration, “Second Screen” technology which lets you “fling movies and tv shows from your tablet to your TV” and enterprise-ready features.
Everything about the new Kindle HDX is better than the previous HD version. The screen is brighter and has more pixels. It is lighter, thinner, has a better case, and has an improved OS. The buttons are now around the back vs. on either side (which takes a few reps to get used to). You can now jump down to the apps in much similar way to what you can in a normal Android tablet.
But that’s the problem. The OS just isn’t as good as the one you’ll find on the Nexus 7 with similar specs. And with the Nexus 7 you’ll get Google’s extremely productive Google Apps including Google Now, Google Maps, Gmail, Translate, and on and on. With the Kindle line you get a lot of nice apps, including many of the more popular ones like Facebook, Hulu, Netflix. But you don’t get any of the long tail apps you get from the Google Play Store, and that’s kind of a bummer.
Also, I’m personally not feeling the Mayday feature. It was probably awesome when there were only 20 reviewers getting service, but I had to wait on hold for around 10 minutes before I could talk to someone – for me, that’s not worth it. Your mileage will vary, obviously.
Amazon has a ton of good content including a very passable App selection, full music and movie libraries, and of course tons of ebooks. If you are okay with just Amazon, then you are looking at the best tablet you can find. If you want more, then head over to Google Play. Pricing options below.
Amazon has long been said to be working on a smartphone carrying its brand, and it looks like it HTC could be its hardware partner.
That’s according to a report from the Financial Times, which cites people familiar with the project in saying that three different smartphones are currently in development with one being “at an advanced stage of development.”
“We have been very focused on building our own brand, but we have also been very open to co-branding and collaborating with carriers and other technology brands,” HTC chief of marketing Ben Ho told the Financial Times, but declined to comment on any specific relationship with Amazon.
Shipping a phone with both the HTC and Amazon logos would mean more than just branding for the phone, as Amazon would be able to take over much of the Android operating system experience as it has done with the Kindle Fire tablets. HTC partnered with Facebook earlier this year for the not-so-popular-now HTC First featuring Facebook Home, but borrowing software features from the Kindle Fire like Mayday, an Amazon support service for users, could prove valuable to both HTC and Amazon and be very appealing to new users in a saturated smartphone market.
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From the latest @evleak we can see the rumored new Kindle Fire third generation above. It would appear that Amazon is unfortunately keeping their big bezels and also their heavy proprietary overlay. From the image you can see updated UI improvements that will likely also hit the current lineup. We’re sadly not expecting to see a Google Play Store App like the recently announced Nook OS updates with hundreds of thousands of apps including Google’s Maps, Plus, YouTube, Gmail and more.
BGR caught the purported angular backside of this generation of Kindle earlier this week and together we can usually conclude that leak frequency increase means launch soon. As for specs, BGR’s source says:
Amazon’s new 7-inch Kindle Fire HD will feature a high-resolution 1,920 x 1,200-pixel display, a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset clocked at more than 2GHz, 2GB of RAM, Wi-Fi, optional cellular data, Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and either 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of internal storage.
The updated 8.9-inch model is said to feature nearly identical specs beneath its 2,560 x 1,600-pixel high-definition display, and it also includes an 8-megapixel rear camera.
We’re told both models are lighter and more comfortable to use than the current-generation tablets they will replace.
If you are in Amazon’s ecosystem, this could be exciting news. However we’d take the new smaller-bezel Nexus 7 with an Amazon app sight unseen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5bU28_GYmc
Amazon announced today that it’s introducing a new “Mobile Associates API” for Android and Kindle Fire devices allowing developers to offer Amazon.com goods as in-app purchases and earn a percentage of sales in the process. Developers will earn up to 6% off purchases made through their apps and all sales will go through Amazon’s secure 1-Click purchasing and Amazon Prime shipping.
Amazon described a few of the possibilities for developers:
Until today, if developers wanted to create additional revenue channels for their apps they could use a “freemium” model with digital in-app purchasing or subscriptions, or by using mobile ads… App and game developers as well as existing Amazon Associates can create new and compelling user experiences within apps and games in three ways: selling a single item from within an app or game, showcasing a category of goods, or bundling the purchase of physical goods with the purchase of digital goods (for example, the customer receives a digital version of a board game when they buy the physical one). Animoca, Fismos, Days of Wonder and Spring2Partners are already integrating these experiences within their popular apps and games.
You can learn more about the new API on the Amazon developers blog.
