Amazon Kindle Fire 2 rumours surface again, but still no UK love

The Gadget Show  Thursday 17 May 2012

We’re closing in on two and a half years since the original iPad launched and the Apple slate still has a stranglehold on the tablet market, with Google’s Android brigade still searching for the same kind of winning recipe that’s proved so successful in the smartphone market.

But Amazon’s cut-price Kindle Fire has come closer than most, and now it seems the online retail giant is lining up a bigger-screened successor to launch in the run-up to Christmas. The bad news? There’s still no sign we’ll get to see either in the UK.

According to Reuters, Amazon’s second tablet will have a bigger screen than the current model, jumping from a 7-inch display to an 8.9-inch. That’s broadly consistent with past rumours suggesting Amazon was interested in expanding the range to other screen sizes, though at the time the larger 10-inch form factor was also mentioned.

Amazon Kindle Fire 2: three new models on the way

Other than that, it’s likely Amazon will look to repeat the pricing strategy that has proved so successful with the first-generation Kindle Fire, and will look to launch the new model in time to take maximum advantage of the Christmas spending rush.

The Kindle Fire is a fairly basic device as far as tablets go, but it’s also heavily subsidised to achieve a price point none of its rivals can match, with Amazon banking on app and e-book sales and income from other added-value content to make up the difference.

But while it’s clearly a winning strategy, it’s also a frustrating one, as it makes the process of launching the device in new markets highly complicated. When the Kindle Fire launched late last year, Amazon did make vague suggestions that we’d be seeing the ultra-affordable tablet on UK soil at some point. But that talk has since gone quiet – and needless to say there’s no word at all in the Reuters report to suggest things will be any different second time around.

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Amazon, Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire 2, tablet, Android