Kindle Fires to Ship One Day Early

Amazon.com today announced it is shipping Kindle Fire, already the bestselling item on Amazon.com, one day early. Kindle Fire offers more than 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, books, magazines, apps and games, as well as free storage of Amazon digital content in the Amazon Cloud, Whispersync for books and movies, a 14.6 ounce design that's easy to hold with one hand, a vibrant color touch screen, a powerful dual-core processor and Amazon Silk – Amazon's new revolutionary web browser that accelerates the power of the mobile device by using the computing speed and power of the Amazon Web Services cloud – all for only $199. To learn more about Kindle Fire, visit www.amazon.com/kindlefire.

“We’re thrilled to be able to ship Kindle Fire to our customers earlier than we expected. Kindle Fire quickly became the bestselling item across all of Amazon.com, and based on customer response we’re building millions more than we’d planned,” said Dave Limp, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “Customers are excited about Kindle Fire because it is a premium product at the non-premium price of only $199.”

Kindle Fire offers customers a fully-integrated service with instant access to over 18 million movies, TV shows, magazines, newspapers, books, songs, apps and games, including:

    Over 100,000 movies and TV shows from Amazon Instant Video
    Over 17,000,000 songs from Amazon MP3
    Millions of books
    Over 400 full-color magazines and newspapers
    100 exclusive graphic novels from DC Comics, including Watchmen, the bestselling graphic novel of all time
    Several thousand apps and games, including Netflix, Pandora, Hulu Plus, Rhapsody, and games from Electronic Arts, Zynga and Rovio

A free month of Amazon Prime, which offers two-day shipping and access to nearly 13,000 movies and TV shows available to stream at no additional cost and exclusive access to over 5,000 popular books from the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library to read on any Kindle device at no additional cost and with no due dates.

Kindle Fire orders are fulfilled on a first-come first-served basis. Customers can purchase now at www.amazon.com/kindlefire.

Kindle Fire Apps Coming Next Week

Amazon said Wednesday morning that it will have “several thousand” apps coming for the Kindle Fire’s launch next week.

The apps will include access to Netflix, a selling point that Barnes and Noble highlighted with its launch of the new Nook Tablet this week.

Other apps available through Amazon’s curated version of the Android market will include Facebook, Pandora (also a Nook partner), Rovio, PopCap, Zynga and Gameloft, all powerhouses for mobile consumption.

In a press release, Kindle vice president Dave Limp said that the new apps were “only the beginning -- we’re adding more apps and games every day across all categories.”

The Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet are set to compete head-on for consumers looking for cheaper tablets that focus on reading. At $199, the Kindle Fire has the price advantage, though the Nook has more memory. On the other hand, the Fire is aimed at being more of an all-in-one device for mobile media, providing access to Amazon’s extensive retail ecosystem.

A new report from ChangeWave Research, Boy Genius Report shared, has found that demand for the Kindle Fire slightly outstrips the demand the company measured for the iPad 2 ahead of its 2010 launch: Five percent of customer said they were “very likely” to buy the Fire, compared with 4 percent of folks who said the same about iPad 2. Analysts have said that the Fire is not likely to be a major threat to the iPad, because the Amazon tablet going after the low end of the market. The iPad is more of a high-end device.  I expect Kindle Fire sales to be stronger than even the experts are planning this holiday season.

Blackberry's Playbook will hit Sub $500 Price Point

RIM's Blackberry PlayBook will be introduced in the spring of next year and at a price point below $500, its co-CEO Jim Balsillie detailed to several news outlets on Wednesday.

RIM intends to compete with Apple's iPad in one of tech's fastest growing sectors by pricing it close to the now top-selling tablet.

The Blackberry device will have a 1GHz dual-core processor, front and rear-facing cameras, HTML5 and Flash support, HD video support, and HD video output.

The first PlayBooks would only have Wi-Fi capabilities for Internet connectivity, although it said at launch 3G and 4G models would follow shortly afterwards. The device would run a tablet based OS, that while similar in its user interface, would not be developed by RIM but rather operating system developer and subsidiary QNX.

The Playbook will launch in early 2011.  No carrier partners have been announced as of yet.

It's going to be difficult, but RIM has a chance if the price is below the magical $500 mark.