It is no secret that Amazon is working on tablets. Spurred by the growing popularity of Android-powered touchscreen devices including the Nook Color, Amazon is hard at work on its own set of tablets. Previous rumors have pointed toward a launch later this year and DigiTimes agrees. The site has clarified these earlier rumors, suggesting that the new tablets may come as soon as August or September. Amazon hopes to sell 4 million of these by year-end.
Exactly what these tablets are and who they’re targeting is up for debate, however. It’s likely that Amazon will thoroughly embed its Kindle e-book reader, Amazon Music Cloud Player/Drive, Amazon Instant Video, Amazon Appstore, and a host of other services into the device(s), but price points and more detailed information is lacking. Rumors suggests that Samsung will manufacture the new tablets, and the higher end of the two may have a quad-core Nvidia Tegra “Kal-El” processor. The other will have much more modest specs. Some say there may be a phone as well.
After spending some time with the new Nook Touch, we suspect that Amazon may debut a touchable version of its E Ink Kindle as well. If not, it may be in for some tough competition.
