Ironic then that it's Android only in name, as it runs a completely custom version

Sep 3, 2011 10:00 GMT  ·  By

Amazon's tablet is one of the tech industry's best known 'secrets.' Everyone knew a device was coming this fall, and there were even some technical details, like the fact that it would be a 7-inch device.

Now though, TechCrunch has managed to get up close and personal with a pre-release version of the tablet and has plenty of details to share.

There aren't any big surprises about the hardware. It will be called the Amazon Kindle, a big hint of the company's market positioning strategy, and it will be a 7-inch, Android-powered tablet.

The design is simple and clean, it's black from one end to the other, there are no front-facing buttons and no cameras. It may be sporting a single-core processor, though there's no clear indication of that, and have some 6 GB of internal storage.

The hardware itself is nothing impressive. What is impressive though is the price Amazon is going to sell it for, $250, significantly less than any decent Android tablet on the market and half the price of the cheapest iPad.

It's going to be the cheapest Android tablet around, that anyone will want to buy. That may not seem like much, but so far, no one has been able to significantly undercut the iPad on price.

Selling a device that is inferior (as a user experience), that has significantly less clout with consumers and which is more expensive than the iPad, is close to impossible, as the myriad of companies trying to sell Android tablets have found by now.

Of course, calling the upcoming color Amazon Kindle an Android tablet is not entirely accurate. Yes, it's running Android underneath, but Amazon left no stone unturned in customizing the device.

The Kindle tablet is running an older version of Android, possibly pre 2.2 (which is ancient by Android standards) and features none of the Google apps. In fact, Google had absolutely nothing to do with Amazon's tablet.

Everything from the user interface to the apps on it is new and Amazon built. The company is not the first to go this route, the Barnes and Noble Nook, the device the new Kindle tablet is going head-to-head with, took the same approach as well.

But the Amazon's Kindle tablet biggest strength is not its price nor the company's marketing strength, it's the tight integration with Amazon services, everything from the store to the cloud music, video store and, of course, the Kindle store.