Everyone’s talking Amazon’s nifty new watch-out-Apple tablet, supposedly an Android derivative dubbed the “Kindle Fire,” but have you heard about the other two?

Yes, the other two. As we head into the eleventh hour, we’re hearing Amazon’s planning not one, not two, but three Kindle tablets for its Wednesday (tomorrow) dog and pony show. The so-called Kindle Fire is rumored to be an aggressively priced 7-inch color LCD Android slate, and may (or may not, depending who you read) be designed to go toe-to-toe with Apple’s iPad. That said, it sounds like Amazon wants to support its “but we just want a decent e-reader!” audience as well, and will announce two black and white Kindles at tomorrow’s event, too.

The source: Concord Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who says Amazon’s planning two 6-inch grayscale e-ink Kindles, dubbed “Tequila” (low-end) and “Whitney,” (high-end) to complement the color Kindle Fire (dubbed “Hollywood”).

Kuo says the low-end model could be priced as low as $99, would include a Freescale i.MX515 processor (comparable to Apple’s A4), and offer “better system design and lower cost.” The high-end model, by contrast, will add touch controls, 3G support and a speaker, says Kuo. But don’t look for the latter until October, adds Kuo, because of its “more complicated design and assembly,” though Kuo’s already projecting shipments of both e-readers: 8 million Tequilas and 4 million Whitneys by year’s end, placing the Kindle squarely on top (with 68% total market share) in e-reader shipments.

Sidebar: Kuo says TechCrunch has it wrong, and that the Kindle Fire will launch yet this month, not, as TechCrunch claims, in mid-November. If Kuo’s right, Amazon has just three days to make that happen.

[Via Apple Insider]

[This post republished from Techland]

 
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