By the middle of this year, Amazon is expected to release a larger, 9-inch version of the original Kindle Fire tablet, as well as a refreshed 7-inch model, according to one analyst's forecast.
The introduction of the two
tablets is expected to raise Amazon’s 2012 Kindle Fire sales from 12 million units to an estimated 14.9 million units.
"We are raising our 2012 sales forecasts to 14.9 million from 12.7 million," wrote Chad Bartley, an analyst at Pacific Crest, in a note to investors.
"But we believe there is an upward bias, particularly from the new 7 and 9-inch models, which we expect to launch in mid-2012," continued Mr. Bartley.
The launch of a larger Fire, would potentially allow
Amazon to take on tablets like the iPad, especially if the retailer manages to keep the pricing of its 9-inch Kindle low enough.
TechRadar expects the 9-inch Amazon slate to hit the market for around $250 (about 188 EUR), which would make it one of the cheapest tablets of this size around.
No matter how much Amazon will decide to ask for this new Kindle Fire, the outfit is expected to use the same highly customized operating system based on the Android OS, that is also installed in its current offering.
In the UI used for the
Kindle Fire, tasks such as multitasking between the open applications were redesigned to make these processes easier for the consumer.
In addition, Amazon also developed a new Web browser, which is called the Amazon Silk and has been optimized to decrease page loading times and provide a much smoother Internet surfing experience.
Users will also get access to the Android Appstore and Kindle books service, as well as to Amazon's Cloud Storage service, which are all features provided in the Kindle Fire.
As far as the new 7-inch Fire is concerned, this is expected to use mostly the same hardware as its predecessor, but will receive many of the features Amazon left out first time around in order to get the original Fire tablet out for Christmas.
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