Amazon showed off its fall 2012 lineup of new Kindle Fires at a Santa Monica press conference on September 6. While a lot of hype has been placed on the Kindle Fire HD, the new second-gen Kindle Fire offers a compelling steal at a low price.
The new Amazon Kindle Fire is available for pre-orders through Amazon and will cost $159. Shipping will begin November 14, and while it lacks some of the competitive features that its Kindle Fire HD brothers have, the Kindle FIre looks like a solid tablet at a more affordable price.
The Kindle Fire will be a 7-inch tablet that offers a display resolution of 1024X600 on an LCD screen. It will come with 8GB of internal memory and free cloud storage for all content purchased through Amazon. The new Kindle Fire's battery will offer 8.5 hours of continuous use, according to Amazon.The tablet will also feature a dual-core 1.2GHz processor that will run an Android operating system.
The tablet won't offer the performance of the Nexus 7, the rumored iPad Mini, or its bigger brother, the Kindle Fire HD, but it looks like it will be a competent media tablet.
Keep in mind that for $40 more, you can pick up the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD. With a faster processor, better display, and a dual-band dual-antennae that Amazon claims deliver Wi-Fi 40 percent faster than the iPad 3, they are a more competitive $200 tablet against the Nexus 7.
With stereo speakers (sadly it won't come with Dolby Audio like the Kindle Fire HD will), the Kindle Fire won't be the most powerful budget tablet on the market, but it will be the most affordable. A brand new tablet for $159 is hard to beat, and unless you are looking for something more powerful, it might be your best choice.
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