By Amazon seems to have something brewing in the coming weeks as we have just received an invite to attend a press conference they’re hosting. They’ll be hosting us in a rather large Santa Monica, CA venue September 6th at 10:30am Pacific, and with virtually no hints on the invitation itself we aren’t given a clue as to what we’ll be seeing.
But the Phandroid crew getting an invite is a hint itself: there’s obviously something Android related being shown. Amazon began their Android endeavors by opening up the Amazon Appstore and offering the 7 inch multimedia device known as the Kindle Fire.
If you don’t remember, Amazon was said to have a couple more devices in the pipeline when the Kindle Fire was originally rumored. We’d been led to believe that they would be looking to bring a 10 inch option to market, and that they might even look into bringing an Amazon-branded smartphone.
Those rumors haven’t quite panned out just yet, but they were never quite put to rest either. It’s possible (and a bit more likely) that we’ll be seeing that 10 inch variant flaunted for all to see and groomed for an early holiday release, but anything could happen.
Another expectation is for Amazon to introduce a refresh to the 7 inch model. We’d love to see something with a camera and SD/microSD card slot, as well as an option for 3G connectivity alongside WiFi. A chipset with a bit more power wouldn’t hurt, though with Amazon likely to focus on keeping costs down we wouldn’t be surprised to see them take a shortcut in that are.
We also wouldn’t be mad at all to see an Amazon smartphone introduced, though those rumors have been a bit less frequent for us to believe they’re ready to tackle the highly competitive phone space.
Whatever it is, we’ll be in Santa Monica to take it all in and bring you an up-close look at what should be a very exciting announcement. Dial it in right back here September 6th for all the live coverage you can handle.
If they release a smartphone at all, it would probably be a device in the same category as Samsung’s Note and LG’s Vu.
I don’t see how you get that reasoning. Those devices are a little too “innovative” for the general public as of now. Amazon would want to make something that could satisfy everyone.
yea if they are releasing a phone It would probably be around the 4-4.3 range which is average
wrong. far from average.
Why? People are scarfing up Note and Asus Nexus. Apparently people want it and Amazon knows how to procure it cheaply.
I would venture to guess it’s the successor to the Kindle Fire, likely available in at least two form factors, and likely with varying amounts of memory. I highly doubt that Amazon is going to release a phone, it doesn’t really make any business sense for them. A tablet, certainly, especially with the Amazon App store and Amazon video, but I think an Amazon phone would be a dismal failure. Not because Amazon is a bad company – far from it, but because of the financial risk involved; who would carry the signals? Amazon sure as heck isn’t likely going to build out a telecommunications network overnight, or ever, and there is already a lot of competition as it is with the major carriers, metro carriers, budget carriers, etc. It would be hard to differentiate themselves. Tablets, on the other hand, make a lot of sense, especially giving people options.
Amazon could become an MVNO using the network of any of the main four American carriers. If they offer an uncrippled network charging by data only (the same way they’d be buying from verizon, AT&T, etc.), then the users would be free to use VOIP, bittorrent, etc. with no restrictions — other than your data cap. Customers would flock to amazon for that.
If amazon can become an MVNO for multiple MNO’s (verizon, AT&T, T-mobile, and Sprint), then they could offer one phone that would be able to connect to any network, switching depending on local signal strength, pricing, etc.
I don’t think the price would be much lower, unless amazon offered some low data/limited voice minutes packages, but as an MVNO, if I’m understanding the American market right (and if one phone can bridge WCDMA and GSM networks), then amazon could make the carriers the dumb data pipes we need them to be.
iOS and android were punch number 1.
amazon MVNO could be punch number 2.
I don’t keep up with Apple, but friend said it’s 4 days before Apples announcement?
Your apple friend would also say Thanksgiving is 2 months and 15 days after Apple’s announcement. He would also say Christmas is 3 months and 15 days after Apple’s announcement. Tell your friend the world does not revolve around Apple’s announcements. Really, who cares when Apple releases their wannabe android fondleslab.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pNvOOjhRvM
You don’t have to trash Apple. Just say you’re sick of these ANON sources and call it good.
Whats more interesting is that Apple hasn’t announced and Apple event yet, so you’re friend must be the smartest person alive.
Whatever they announce I hope its service related more than hardware. This should be their strength with their massive cloud service architecture. Its second to none but they really haven’t put enough focus on consumer services. Its been mostly enterprise service. There is no reason why amazon can’t offer products like google maps, wallet, music etc. Would love to see amazon go that route and build services that google hasn’t done. To me just competing in hardware is not a very compelling path for amazon. They’ve had mild success with the various kindles but it doesn’t look like they have had long term success with any of them and have to rely on frequent hardware refreshes (didn’t even take a year for interest to be lost on fire and overtaken by N7). Its easy to overtake someone’s hardware but not as easy with service.
Amazon Nexus.
Kindle Ice MAXX?
Kinda wish they just stuck with making awesome e-book readers. I guess it’ll be a Nexus 7 competitor and maybe a bigger one.
yawn
I don’t know how amazon is going to be able to compete with the Nexus 7 for the subsidized-and-crippled-device eReader market. Having access to Google Play is a huge advantage for the Nexus 7. If amazon can offer Google Play also, then they could try to compete just on the hardware side. What a challenge for them!
For me, though, the timing on this is fine. The non-crippled 7″ tablet is about to get its first Kai-based device in the acer Iconia Tab A110 (lower res screen, no NFC built-in, but with USB mass storage mounting, a micro-SD card slot, and HDMI out). Amazon will announce their new tablets about the same time as the A110 is finally available for purchase. I doubt amazon will be able to compete, but they will have the chance.