At a New York City event, Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos introduced the Kindle Fire, a tablet that could rival Apple’s market-dominating iPad.
The tablet, priced at $199, works off of a customized version of Google’s Android operating system. It will be available on Nov. 15.
The Seattle-based company could sell up to five million tablets in this year’s fourth quarter, say analysts at Forrester Research.
The price tag is lower than analyst predictions, but what remains to be seen is how well the Kindle Fire performs. At today’s event Jeff Bezos demonstrated some of that capability, playing the popular game “Fruit Ninja.” Bezos also demonstrated how users could read while listening to music.
Amazon Web Services, its company’s extensive cloud infrastructure, will be used to back up tablet content and do some of the heavy lifting when it comes to Web surfing.
During the hour long presentation Bezos also introduced the Kindle Touch. The new e-reader, which looks similar to the Nook from Barnes & Noble, swaps out the keyboard of previous Kindles for a touchscreen. A WiFi version will be available in late November for $99. The 3G version sill cost $149.
You can read our minute-by-minute updates from this morning’s event below. And don’t miss the Wall Street Journal’s wrap-up story for additional analysis.