Amazon is reportedly planning to launch what could be the cheapest tablet yet, a $50 (roughly £30) Kindle Fire. The online retailer is famed (and feared by rivals) for its cut-throat margins, and now it looks set to drive down the cost of already cheap tablet hardware even further.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the company is planning to launch the 6in device this side of Christmas in the US. New Amazon hardware tends to take a month or two to filter over to the UK, so it may not arrive here in time for the festivities.
A 6in screen pushes the device into the so-called "phablet" size bracket, although it won't offer phone features. Indeed, the hardware is likely to be very similar to the the Fire HD 6, which currently sells for £79 but failed to win over our reviewer, despite its already keen price. The WSJ report is light on technical specifications, but reports that the device will only have a mono speaker, like the Fire HD 6, although the screen will reportedly be around half an inch bigger.
The biggest problem with Amazon's tablets is that they are hampered by Amazon's bespoke version of Android, which doesn't offer access to the Google Play Store and provides a restricted experience compared to a standard Android slate. However, with Amazon potentially making a loss on the hardware, it needs to drive users towards its other paid-for services, whether that be the video and music on offer to Amazon Prime subscribers (£79 per year), Kindle books, apps or other goods from the online store. Amazon advertisements appear as screensavers on the cheapest of its Kindle Fire tablets.
The price of compact tablet hardware has plummeted over the past couple of years, with devices such as the Tesco Hudl 2, Samsung Galaxy Tab Lite and the Windows-based Linx 7 all dipping below the £100 mark.
