China Times reports Kindle Fire 2 may ship on August 7A number of news sites are citing the China Times story (on a possible Kindle Fire 2 shipping date), which is displayed in Chinese and therefore not easily read by most of us, and so I'm posting a primitive machine-translation-to-English version of the news article via Google's translation capability. (Thanks to thedroidguy.com for providing the link to the Chinese version).
Although one can't trust the accuracy of an automated machine-transation, this gives us an idea of what was said, on a more basic level. The really tortured translations can be fun to read as almost impossible puzzles of their own.
According to the China Times, factory components began shipping in heavy volume in June, to Taiwan-based Quanta for the coming new Kindle Fire tablet, and it's expected that "the first wave of shipments of about 200 million units" [of the new Kindle Fire] ... "may fall on 7 August" to counter the impact of the Google Nexus 7.
The newspaper echos Digitimes' prediction that the targeted launch date (announcement date) of the new device is the end of July (July 31) and the idea is "to stimulate a new wave of buying." The quoted sections are of the Google translation of the story, not literally what China Times said.
Quanta made the first Kindle Fire and is OEM panel factory for Sony and RIM, which makes sense since the original Kindle Fire's frame, and somewhat more, was based on RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook.
China Times's Zhan Zixian names TPK and XIN as responsible for the 'touch part,' and some changes expected include the previously mentioned metal casing instead of a plastic one, while there is also mention of a new battery, which would be required for a more powerful unit that is expected.
It fleetingly mentions the rumors of the 8.9" and 10" models but says nothing concrete about any of that, only that the Kindle Fire is getting fast-tracked and will be $199 as before.
Amazon would do well to have a minimum 16 gigs of storage on this one (even B&N was able to do that LAST year while Google's Nexus is only 8 gigs) -- and if Amazon can swing the SD card slot, they have nothing to fear from the Nexus. Bluetooth would be an enormous plus so that we can add a physical keyboard.
At the very least, they should provide adapters for an SD card reader and USB device as Apple and Samsung do. But built-in? That would be audacious (if they're worried about collectors or hoarders of other-sourced fare not buying from Amazon) and would make all the difference. They should know their crowd is interested in Amazon's media offerings and so of course should (continue to) make the latter attractive in price.
Google and the UK
There are a lot of news articles today about the Nexus not giving access in the UK to music, tv shows, magazines, and even Google Play apps.
8.9" Kindle tablet?
I saw two stories today saying the latest rumor is of an 8.9" tablet, but it probably came from seeing a mention of an 8.9" one as a later possibility in the China Times's story.
Also, while Amazon has given Quanta an order for, the story says, 2 million new Kindle Fires, Amazon hasn't given Quanta an estimate for any second batch of shipments.
A red flag. China Times mentions "increasing the camera lens to improve screen resolution" -- the original Kindle Fire has no camera lens to improve. However, it's anticipated that the 2nd Kindle Fire's display will have increased screen resolution. Seeing that the Nexus does have a display of 1280x800, there'll be pressure on Amazon to match that.
Current Kindle Models for reference, plus free-ebook search links
| US: Kindle Fire 7" tablet - $199 Kindle NoTouch ("Kindle") - $79/$109 Kindle Touch, WiFi - $99/$139 Kindle Touch, 3G/WiFi - $149/$189 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189, Free, slow web Kindle DX - $379, Free, slow web | UK: Kindle Basic, NoTouch - £89 Kindle Touch WiFi, UK - £109 Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi, UK - £169 Kindle Keyboard 3G, UK - £149 Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB | OTHER International Kindle NoTouch Basic - $109 Kindle Touch WiFi - $139 Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi - $189 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189 Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB |
Check often: Temporarily-free recently published Kindle books
Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources. Top 100 free bestsellers. Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.
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I love my Kindle so if they do make the second one id love to buy it as well :)
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