Amazon Said To Soon Launch $50 Tablet

Amazon is looking to introduce a $50 tablet sporting a 6-inch screen ahead of the all important holiday shopping season, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday (Sept. 7). That move would come after the company has been less than successful in bringing customers to its more expensive devices and would be half the price tag attached to the company’s Fire HD 6-inch tablet.

Citing unnamed sources, WSJ said the introduction by the eCommerce giant at that price point would lure customers looking for a stripped-down device that would be utilitarian for video streaming and shopping (on Amazon, of course), with the tradeoffs tied to screen quality and durability of both the battery and the device itself. One source said the $50 tablet would have a mono speaker, while most competitors have stereo audio.

After the $50 device bows, Amazon will also push tablets with 8- and 10-inch screens, WSJ‘s sources said.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos had set an internal company goal of a $50 price tag for versions of the tablet and also the company’s e-reader, but the latter device had screen requirements that have pushed the cheapest Kindle to $79, according to the financial publication.

In an interview with WSJ, Frank Gillett, a Forrester Research analyst, asked whether customers would “tolerate a potentially inferior experience just because a tablet is $50? Amazon has to be very careful about what they’re giving up to get to that low price point.”

And, of course, Amazon faces a strong competitor in the form of Apple, which has been widely expected to be bringing new iPad and iPad mini tablets to market as soon as this week, in addition to new iPhones.

WSJ reported that Amazon has outsourced a majority of the tablet’s development to overseas producers, including Shanghai Huaqin Telecom.

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