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At the Amazon Kindle Fire Launch Event

So I’m sitting on someone’s doorstep a few doors down from 508 W 37th ST.  I thought you might be interested in 2 photos of the good-sized tent that Amazon have sitting out front. This doesn’t look like a terribly large venue (it has the feel of a converted storefront), but then again I have not been inside yet.

 

Update 12:15: They took away the kFire (and other demo units) before I really got a look at it, but this is not a make-do device. Not for $200. It’s slick looking, fairly fast, and it’s running on a dual core 1GHz OMAPS CPU. It’s running Gingerbread and I have confirmed that. The home screen running on top works both vertical and horizontal.

This will suddenly become the best tablet in that price range when it ships on 15 November. Oh, my, is everyone screwed.

Update 12:15: I still haven’t had a chance to get to the kFire yet. Will go do it now. Note that I barely got a chance to play with the basic model and I was not allowed to use the upper models.

Update 12:12: The Kindle Touch is just as fast and it has a new menu layout. Looks interesting. it ships 20 November for $99 and $149.

I’m told it’s running Kindle OS 5.0. I like the thought they put into the touch screen layout, even though they wouldn’t let me actually touch it. Page turns are both swipe and tap (in about the right spot).

FYI: The current Kindles will stay on the market for now and stay at current prices.

Update 12:06: Oh good. I just got my web connection back. I’ve just come from playing ith the new basic Kindle.

It’s a neat little device that drops the keyboard. It has no card slot, no speakers, and only the page turn buttons d-pad, and 4 other buttons on front (back menu, keyboard home). I noticed that it is designed to work with a dock (little metal squares on back). It’s very fast and very light 6 oz.

I confirmed that if you email a document to this Kindle it will save your file and annotations in the Amazon Cloud. I think this new feature is supported by the Kindle OS 4.0 that it is running.  It also has a neat trick of a second menu.Call up the keyboard, click back, and you have a second menu of search options  including  find, my items, store, Google Wikipedia, dictionary,

This is the D01100 from the FC paperwork I found last night. The $80 price is actually for the Kindeal model; advert-less it will set you back $110. Both are shipping now.

Buy it NOW!

Update 10:52: Ships 15 November.

Update 10:51: kFire to cost $199.

Yes, we are up to 3 ereaders and a tablet.

Update 10:47: Comixology confimred on the kFire. Also screen res is 1024×600. Kindle Fire has its own cloud supported browser called Amazon Silk. It works kinda like how Opera Mobile works. There are servers supporting it.

Update: 10:41: Dual core CPU does games great. This isn’t a stop gap device.

Update: 10:38: Now Showing off the Kindle Fire. It’s using its own interface, just like TC reported a few weeks ago. Appears to have a camera in upper left corner.

Update: 10:36: Whispersync now works for Movies and mp3 bought from Amazon.

Update: 10:34: Just pulled out Kindle Fire. 7″ IPS screen (not same as on NC), 14.6 ounces. Sells Amazon content including ebooks mp3s, movies, etc.

Update: 10:32: Still pitching service but now doing AWS (Amazon Web Services).

Holy shit. Amazon now have 3  Kindles to undercut the Nook Touch and Kobo Touch.

Update: 10:29: Now promoting Amazon services – MP3, appstore, AmPrime, etc.

Update: 10:26: Now showing new Kindle commercial.  Same 2 geeky white folks as last freinds commercial.

Update: 10:23:  And now the $79 6″ non touch Kindle. Ships today, weighs under 6 ounces.

Update: 10:21: Amazon just revealed the Kindle Touch 3G same as the Kindle Touch but for $149. Both ship November 21st.

 

Update: 10:16: Jeff just pulled out the Kindle Touch, a 6″ model with a Neonode touch screen, Price is $99. Also has new feature called X-Ray.

Update 10:14am: Bloomberg leaked the complete presentation at 9:35am. Yes, it’s going to be 3 devices that I foudn the FCC paperwork for last night.

 Update 9:51 am: Inside now and waiting for it to start. I almost got a picture of the new gadget but they covered it up before I knew what I was looking at. BTW I’ve heard via Twitter that someone at Amazon accidentally uploaded a test video to their Youtube channel. It’s supposed to be the same very high res video as RIM used to show off the Playbook’s video ability way back when. The Playbook could play it and that demonstrated its ability to stream the video to HDTVs and the like.

Update 9:37 am: We’re lined up inside, but they haven’t let us go into the event and sit down.

Update: 7:57 am: The big boys have started showing up in their fancy TV trucks: CNN, CNBC, Fox. There’s also a satellite truck around the corner but that’s been there since before me.

Update 7:28 am: Still no sign of any gadgets but Amazon decided to remove any doubt about who was throwing the party today. See the new picture at right. I think I might end up using this post to live-blog the event.

 


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Comments


tene September 28, 2011 um 7:45 am

yay 🙂
Egarly waiting for the hot news 🙂


Drewno September 28, 2011 um 8:04 am

Me too 😉


Syn September 28, 2011 um 8:39 am

If you get hands on Nate, let us know how it stacks up against Nook Color.. 🙂


dave blevins September 28, 2011 um 9:35 am

How ’bout placing the newest items at the top rather than at the bottom?

Nate Hoffelder September 28, 2011 um 10:02 am

Fixed.


tene September 28, 2011 um 10:51 am

AAAAAAAAaaa 😀


dave blevins September 28, 2011 um 10:57 am

Thanx for the stream — where do I pre-order, just went to Amazon.com and no "Fire" or new Kindles there — Amazon is missing a bet here !


k1tsun3 September 28, 2011 um 11:03 am

Very cool! Did they say when these will be available for purchase?


dave blevins September 28, 2011 um 11:06 am

Wow they do have a set of pages but the URL is huge:

http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Color-Multi-touch-Display-Wi-Fi/dp/B0051VVOB2/ref=kin3w_ddp_compare_title5_1?pf_rd_p=1321385682&pf_rd_s=center-18&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B0051QVESA&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1DDPHFQG95WZEQ6Q9Z87


Nathaniel September 28, 2011 um 11:16 am

What OS is it running, website doesn’t say.

Nate Hoffelder September 28, 2011 um 12:40 pm

Gingerbread


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MNielsen September 28, 2011 um 11:43 am

Nate thanks for the narrative feed.
Not sure what to think. The tablet seems a little bland but then again it’s not the outside that counts.
The scrolling interface is different, and might work great if you only have a few apps, but if you have more than 20 I think flipping might be an annoyance.
The cloud storage was expected and not something I am in favor of. I know this is a device from Amazon for Amazon customers but still it would be nice to take the things with you if you move to a different device. This might be possible in a roundabout way but not directly indicated in the video (which by the way focused too much on stuff you have to buy)


burger flipper September 28, 2011 um 12:02 pm

Hope you got your hands on em. Looking forward to reading about it.


fjtorres September 28, 2011 um 12:20 pm

They’re out for blood: *five* kindles under $189.

And they are baselining with the Special Offers versions to hit the sweetspot prices of $79, $99, and $149.
If you look at the website lineup they list 2 Kindle Keyboard models for $99 and $139, 2 touch models at $99 and $149, and the plain K4 at $79. You need to look closer to see those are the KSO prices.

The K4 is the killer here; it appears to have side-mounted paging buttons and at 4.5in wide it is (just barely) one-hand usable for reading. the 2GB memory and smaller battery is a minus but the thing is comparable to the PB360+ in size and offers up a 6″ pearl screen. At $109. drool.

They’re covering keyboard, keyboardless, and touchscreen ergonomics so nobody can gripe. And the SO-model prices are really attractive.

Things are going to get nasty.


renzo September 28, 2011 um 12:22 pm

got huge news!


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