After months of silence, the worst kept secret in the personal electronics market has been confirmed at a New York press conference when Amazon confirmed the launch of their new tablet computer – the Kindle Fire – which will sell for just $ 199 and starts shipping on November the fifteenth. Amazon are taking pre-orders starting from today and, based on previous experience with Kindle launches, it seems likely that the new tablet will be sold out before it even starts shipping.
The Fire’s 7″, LCD color touch screen is ideal for watching video or surfing the web. It could very well do for downloadable movies what the Kindle reader did for ebooks. Battery life is said to be seven and a half hours when watching videos and 8 hours when reading books.
A whole new series of Kindle readers was also announced at the same time. There will be a new entry level Kindle, which sells for just $ 79. A range of different Kindle Touch readers will also be available, priced between $ 99 and $ 189, depending upon which model you choose.