Amazon To Release $99 Kindle Fire To Steal Sales From iPad Mini

Amazon hasn’t been able to beat the iPad in terms of features, apps or build quality, but the ace up the online retail giant’s sleeve was always the price: at just $199 for the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD, getting Amazon’s tablet is at least $130 cheaper than Apple’s cheapest iPad mini.

Undercutting Apple on price, then, is the major way Amazon is competing ith Apple in the tablet space, and a new report suggests they are about to take that even further with the release of a $99 Kindle Fire.

According to a new report by TechCrunch, the $99 Kindle Fire will come with a Texas Instruments Processor and feature a 1280 x 600 display, so don’t expect it to boast the “HD” moniker.

Currently, a Kindle Fire costs just $159, so knocking $60 off the top doesn’t seem totally unreasonable.

It’s a strategy that makes sense for Amazon. While Amazon will be taking something of a loss on the hardware, the Kindle Fire line-up of tablets is really just a means of getting a computer wholly dedicated to purchasing things from Amazon in consumers’ hands. Not a bad strategy, when you think about it.

• Source Techcrunch

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