Amazon’s $200 tablet, the Kindle Fire, was announced in late September and is expected to start shipping in about two weeks. When the online retail giant published their Q3 2011 financial results in late October, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said: “Based on what we’re seeing with Kindle Fire pre-orders, we’re increasing capacity and building millions more than we’d already planned.” So it’s doing great, and we’re delighted to see that since the tablet market (read: the iPad market) seriously needs a kick in the pants when it comes to innovation, but us being the foaming from the mouth technology addicts that we are, we want to know about the next version and when it’ll come out. Ryan Block, former Engadget Editor in Chief and now with GDGT, answered those two questions on the day the Kindle Fire was launched:
“My sources tell me the second-gen Kindle tablet (or Kindle Fire, as it’s now been dubbed) will be out in Q1 of 2012 — yes, that soon. That was always the plan, but the delays of the v1 product have messed up Amazon’s release cycle. And what’s worse, the second tablet — which Amazon didn’t just take more or less off the shelf from ODM manufacturer Quanta — seems to be the device Amazon really believes in.
Now according to DigiTimes we also know that the next generation Fire, which is odd to be talking about since the first one isn’t even out yet, will have an 8.9 inch screen. Compared to the first Kindle Fire, which will ship with a 7 inch screen, it’s a welcome improvement, but we’re curious as to how Amazon will price the new larger version.
Anyway, for people not in the United States the availability of the Amazon Kindle Fire has yet to be announced. Don’t get your hopes up that it’ll happen anytime soon either. When it came to the electronic ink version of the Kindle, Amazon waited until the second generation to go international.
