The new Amazon.com Kindles–the Fire and Touch–are out, and Black Friday has come and gone. Amazon is delighted with how well they sold:

“Even before the busy holiday shopping weekend, we’d already sold millions of the new Kindle family and Kindle Fire was the bestselling product across all of Amazon.com. Black Friday was the best ever for the Kindle family – customers purchased 4X as many Kindle devices as they did last Black Friday – and last year was a great year,” said Dave Limp, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “In addition, we’re seeing a lot of customers buying multiple Kindles – one for themselves and others as gifts – we expect this trend to continue on Cyber Monday and through the holiday shopping season.”

Four times last year’s sales, eh? Impressive! But we don’t really know how impressive, since Amazon never disclosed how many Kindles it sold last year. The company keeps bragging about its e-reader sales without ever mentioning numbers.

2010 example:

“We’re grateful to the millions of customers who have made the all-new Kindle the bestselling product in the history of Amazon — surpassing Harry Potter 7,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO. “We’re seeing that many of the people who are buying Kindles also own an LCD tablet. Customers report using their LCD tablets for games, movies, and web browsing and their Kindles for reading sessions. They report preferring Kindle for reading because it weighs less, eliminates battery anxiety with its month-long battery life, and has the advanced paper-like Pearl e-ink display that reduces eye-strain, doesn’t interfere with sleep patterns at bedtime, and works outside in direct sunlight, an important consideration especially for vacation reading. Kindle’s $139 price point is a key factor — it’s low enough that people don’t have to choose.”

2009:

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced that November is already the best sales month ever for Kindle, even before Cyber Monday. Kindle continues to be the most wished for, the most gifted, and the #1 bestselling product across all product categories on Amazon. The latest generation Kindle – just released in October – is $259 and available for immediate shipment today at www.amazon.com/kindle.

Earlier in 2009:

Amazon.com today announced that more new generation Kindles were ordered in the first four weeks of availability than in the same timeframe following any other Kindle launch, making the new Kindles the fastest-selling ever. In addition, in the four weeks since the introduction of the new Kindle and Kindle 3G, customers ordered more Kindles on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk combined than any other product, continuing Kindle’s over two-year run as the bestselling product across all the products sold on Amazon.com. The new Kindles started shipping to customers today–two days earlier than previously announced.

…and so on. Always with the triumphant claims about best-sellerhood, but never any specific figures that would allow us to judge for ourselves.

When I wrote about this before, I wondered why Amazon wasn’t forthcoming with hard data. At the time, I thought maybe it was because e-readers were a relatively small product category compared to blockbusters like the iPod. Perhaps Amazon didn’t want to point that out. But with the arrival of the Kindle Fire, I’m dying to know something very specific: How do its sales compare to those of the iPad?

Apple doesn’t always disclose sales figures for its products. As far as I know, though, it doesn’t issue press releases trumpeting their success without large numbers to back up the bragging. For instance, we know that it sold 300,000 units of the original iPad on its first day. But we don’t know whether the Kindle Fire sold in that ballpark, or much less. (I’m assuming we would know if it outsold the iPad. But maybe not.)

I can’t think of anything comparable to Amazon’s ongoing celebration of Kindle sales without any disclosure of what they actually are. It’s clear that Kindles sell well. But until the company fesses up, I’ll always have the sneaking suspicion that they might not be selling quite as well as some people think.

Or as Steve Jobs put it in a 2009 interview with David Pogue, “Usually if you sell a lot of something, you want to tell everybody.”

[Image courtesy of Bigstock.]

I wondered why no company has taken up the challenge of building…well, the iPhone of Android phones. Something that’s elegant, approachable, uncluttered, and respectful of the consumer’s intelligence. Any bundled services would need to be beautifully integrated rather than just shoveled onto the phone indiscriminately, as the apps on Android handsets often are.

And then it hit me: Why not Amazon?

Amazon is good at making things simple. Amazon has taste. Amazon has stores for movies, music, books, magazines, and apps, all of which are already hooked up to our credit cards and shipping addresses.

Most important, Amazon has already done a lot of the heavy lifting required to build a phone. It could simply repurpose much of the effort it’s poured into the Kindle Fire tablet, and then add phone-specific features.

As long as I’m daydreaming: Couldn’t Amazon buy wireless service in bulk from someone like Sprint or Verizon, then resell it in a form that’s designed to be as hassle-free as possible? (Wouldn’t it be cool to sign up for a wireless plan with pricing that was utterly free of mysterious charges?)

I’m not saying that a Kindle Fire phone would be an antidote to Android fragmentation. Actually, if it’s like the Kindle Fire tablet, it would be one of the most fragmented Android phones of all, since Amazon would utterly rework the operating system to serve its purposes. But the Kindle Fire, with its simpler interface and deeply-integrated services, is fragmentation with a point, rather than the random, unsatisfying fragmentation that otherwise pervades Android.

I have no reason to believe that Amazon is planning to make a Kindle phone. Then again, I’d be startled if it hadn’t at least pondered the possibility. I’d consider buying one–would you?

If it’s a cheap tablet you’re after, Barnes & Noble and Amazon want your business. Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble’s $249 Nook Tablet both look promising on paper—the former with its suite of Amazon services, and latter with its superior specs and more diverse streaming video offerings—but chances are, you’ve only got room for one tablet on your holiday wish list.

As is often the case with gadgets, finding the best 7-inch tablet is a matter of figuring out your personal needs. Below, I’ll divvy up the strengths of the Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire so you can figure out what’s most important.

Apps

The Nook Tablet and the Kindle Fire both have app stores, but Amazon’s tablet has a bigger selection. Its gaming library, in particular, is much more diverse, with categories for RPGs, strategy games, shooters and more, whereas the Nook focuses mostly on lighter fare. The Amazon Appstore also offers more free apps, and gives away one paid app every day.

Advantage: Kindle Fire

Streaming Media

Netflix is integrated with the Nook Tablet, pushing recommendations to the user’s home screen, and Hulu Plus is pre-loaded, making Barnes & Noble’s tablet a strong streaming video device. Although the Kindle Fire has its own streaming video service through Amazon Prime, it’s only ideal for people who already subscribe to the $79-per-year service for something else, be it the limited book rental library or free two-day shipping. For everyone else, the Nook Tablet’s video services have a better selection and wider availability on other devices, such as smartphones and game consoles. Streaming music is a toss-up, with both tablets offering apps for Pandora, MOG and Rhapsody. (UPDATE: The Kindle Fire will be getting a Netflix app at launch. I’m still giving the edge to the Nook Tablet for now for its Hulu Plus support.)

Advantage: Nook Tablet

Reading

The Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet hit all the same feature checkboxes for e-reading. Both devices offer millions of e-books, plus newspapers and magazines. For parents, the Nook Tablet gets a slight edge for its “Read and Record” capability, which lets you record your own story narrations, but Amazon Prime members will prefer the Kindle Fire for its selection of free e-book rentals. Comic book fans will be divided; the Nook Tablet will have graphic novels from Marvel, while the Kindle Fire has a deal with DC.

Advantage: Toss-Up

On-Demand Media

No contest here. The Kindle Fire will let you purchase or rent videos on demand, and includes access to Amazon’s MP3 store. Best of all, any content you purchase from Amazon is stored online for free, so you won’t have to worry about wasting storage space on the device. The Nook Tablet doesn’t have a way to let you buy music and video on the device, so you’ll have to bring your own content from elsewhere.

Advantage: Kindle Fire

Straight-Up Specs
Although the Nook Tablet is $50 more expensive than the Kindle Fire, you get your money’s worth in raw power. Barnes & Noble’s slate has twice the RAM at 1 GB and twice the built in storage at 16 GB, plus a microSD card slot for even more storage. Otherwise, the two tablets have similar specs, including dual-core processors and 7-inch, 1024-by-600 resolution displays. If you plan to hack either tablet to run a pure version of Android, the Nook Tablet’s extra RAM will be worth the extra scratch, but either way, its generous storage will come in handy.

Advantage: Nook Tablet

Little Details and Intangibles

Specs and features only go so far. Both tablets look good on paper, but either one could be buggy, laggy, unresponsive or otherwise broken at launch. And although Barnes & Noble brags about how the Nook Tablet is lighter than Amazon’s Kindle Fire, the two have very similar proportions, so the difference really comes down to how each one feels in your hands.

Barnes & Noble has one more advantage in its ability to offer free support, free Wi-Fi and special offers for Nook Tablet owners at its retail stores. Amazon, meanwhile, plays to its own strength in web services. The Kindle Fire offers free cloud storage for purchased content, and includes a web browser called Silk that taps Amazon’s web servers to load pages faster. I’m not going to pick a winner or categorically declare one tablet better than the other—at least not until I’ve tried both of them in finished form.

[This post republished from Techland.]

I may be indulging in wishful thinking, but there’s a possibility that ten years from now we’ll look back on Silk as the single most important thing in today’s announcement.

In many ways, Amazon’s presentation mirrored Apple’s iconic Steve Jobs keynotes: CEO spouting stats, announcing products, and saving the best for last, interspersed with videos. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is a gifted speaker and did a good job. I was startled by one major difference between an Apple event and this one–Bezos received only sporadic smattering of polite applause. There were no thunderous ovations or wild cheering. I don’t think that was a sign that the audience wasn’t impressed–but the ratio of journalists to employees and VIPs may have been higher at the Amazon event than at typical Apple ones.

(Yes, there are some journalists who clap and hoot at Apple events, but it makes me cringe when they do. Non-journalist types, however, are entitled to get as raucous as they please.)

Since the market also contains several other Android competitors, can Amazon claim the number two tablet spot? Let’s take a look.

(Click the above image to see the chart at a larger size.)

As previous reports indicated, the Kindle Fire looks a lot like the BlackBerry PlayBook because it was designed by the same company that helped Research In Motion build that tablet. The Fire is slightly thicker than the PlayBook, yet thinner than 7-inch Android tablets such as the Lenovo IdeaPad A1 or the Toshiba Thrive 7″. Apple still maintains the slimmest tablet in the bunch.

The screen on the Kindle Fire uses IPS technology (also found on the iPad), with a resolution of 1024 pixels by 600 pixels, which is in line with most current 7-inch Android tablets. The notable exception here is the Toshiba Thrive 7″, which uses a higher-resolution display.

In order to keep the price down, Amazon only bundled 8GB of on-board storage, the same amount found on the Nook Color or the Iconia Tab.

Amazon didn’t skimp too much on performance for its media tablet. The Fire packs an unspecified dual-core processor (probably 1GHz), but there’s no word on the amount of RAM. What Amazon did skimp on are cameras–there’s no front or back camera, and there’s no MicroSD card slot (Amazon is banking on cloud storage), no HDMI, GPS, or 3G capability.

For Media Consumption Only?

Gone is the time when the iPad was the most affordable tablet, and Android manufacturers struggled to even match its price. By removing all the above features, Amazon managed to keep the price of the Fire at $199–a remarkable feat when you consider that the closest competitor (in price, but not features), the Nook Color, costs $50 more. Lenovo’s tablet is also about $50 more expensive, but only packs a single core processor, although for your extra bucks you do get dual cameras, GPS, and 16GB of storage.

The lack of cameras, GPS, expandable storage or even Bluetooth clearly sets the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet apart as a media consumption-only tablet.

You will be able to download various productivity apps from the bundled Amazon Appstore, but the main purpose of the tablet, given its low entry price, is to consume content from Amazon, whether it’s movies, books, magazines, music, or games. For that purpose, even with missing hardware features, Amazon has a very interesting proposition for casual customers as an alternative to the iPad.

[This post republished from PCWorld.]

The pricing alone is sure to spook both Apple and Barnes & Noble. Here are the details on the Amazon Kindle Fire and the new Kindle e-readers.

The Kindle Fire has a 7-inch IPS display with 1024-by-600-pixel resolution, plus a dual-core processor and 8GB of storage; it promises 7.5 hours of video playback. While the Fire has a USB port for file transfers, it offers neither a camera nor a microphone. The tablet measures 7.5 by 4.7 by 0.45 inches, and weighs 14.6 ounces.

But this tablet isn’t supposed to be about tech specs–it’s meant to be a dead-simple slate for consuming Amazon content. At the top, the interface has a search bar that can search locally, in the cloud, and on the Web. Below that is a strip of content categories, followed by a stylized list of recent content. On the bottom of the screen, users can pin their favorite apps, books, and other media.

Amazon’s digital storefronts include ebooks, movies, TV shows, music, and apps. Several magazine publishers are bringing their periodicals to the tablet as well. Although the Kindle Fire doesn’t offer much internal storage, users may store any purchased-from-Amazon content in cloud storage for free. Amazon made no mention of Google services, so don’t expect Google Maps or the Android Market to be built in.

Although the tablet is based on Android and runs Android apps, it uses a heavily modified version of the operating system that focuses more on simplicity than on advanced features.

For browsing the Web, the Kindle Fire uses a new browser called “Amazon Silk,” which taps Amazon’s cloud computing services to render pages faster. An email app is also built in, with support for multiple mail services in a single inbox.

Amazon says the Silk browser resides both on the Fire and on its own servers. For each page request, Silk divvies up the work between the tablet and the cloud. The result, according to Amazon, is quicker page loads and lower latency.

The Kindle Fire costs $199, including a free month of Amazon Prime, and ships November 15. Amazon is taking preorders on its website.

Amazon is not abandoning its E-Ink readers with today’s tablet announcement: The company also announced new Kindles along with the Kindle Fire tablet.

The Kindle Touch uses the same infrared touch system found in Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Sony’s touchscreen e-readers. With this Kindle model, Amazon is touting what it calls the “EasyReach” system, which lets users tap a short horizontal strip along the top of the screen to call up the menu, touch a narrow vertical strip along the left side to go back one page, or tap anywhere on the rest of the screen to go to the next page.

The Kindle Touch will cost $99 with Special Offers–a service that displays ads and deals on the device’s home page–and $139 without them. A 3G model will cost $149. Amazon is taking preorders now, ahead of the November 21 ship date.

In addition to the touchscreen Kindle, Amazon will launch a non-touch Kindle with Special Offers for $79. This model drops the physical keyboard of previous Kindles in favor of a small set of buttons on the bottom bezel, along with the usual left and right bezel buttons for page turns. Amazon says this model is 30 percent lighter than previous Kindles. Without Special Offers, this Kindle costs $109. Both versions ship today.

(This post republished from PCWorld.)

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]

It may not surprise you to learn that Apple events get by far the highest liveblog attendance here at Technologizer. (Google Android events and Facebook ones are more or less tied for a distant second place.) I’ve never liveblogged an Amazon press conference, so I’m looking forward to it–and wondering whether, as with Apple events, tens of thousands of you will choose to join me.