You're the Pundit: Is Amazon's tablet a contender?

This doesn't sound specifically like an iPad killer... more like a Nook Color killer.

Amazon has pitted itself directly against the Nook. It has the low end option, but Barnes and Nobles had a mid level option over a year ago. Sure the Amazon kindle will have more recognition... and world wide reach, and ideally better software than Barnes and Nobles can punch out. But it's not a cutting edge device like the iPad.

However, it will greatly succeed due to its mid range price. Most people who don't buy an iPad want a cheaper option. Several have bought (and hacked) a Nook Color, but Amazon is open to a much wider audience.

Pending positive reviews, I'll probably buy one.

Nook Color Android-based tablet/eReader from Barnes & Noble has been on the market for over a year and sold millions of units at $250. Gives Flash, apps, videos, color magazines and ebooks with video inserts, and the best anti-glare coated screen on the market. Technology "leader" Amazon is finally catching up with the book store company by copying their device.
Kindle only supports eBooks in its proprietary AZW format. Nook, on the other hand, supports both DRM-protected and DRM-free ebooks in ePub format thus it supports ebooks from B&N store, from any other DRM-free source on the web, and from public libraries.
If you walk in with the Nook to Barnes & Noble store, you’re allowed to read any available eBook for free while in the store via free provided in the store Wi-Fi. Nook Color has hundreds of free apps available for download. Nook store has over 2 million of paid books and about the same number of free public domain books.

Reading the TechCrunch preview doesn't really help. It sounds more like a color screened Kindle with Multi-Touch. No word on battery life, performance in non-reader Apps, supported formats (both ebook and multimedia). As with the iPad 1 I see the lack of cameras as a total no-go. While people question why an iPad even needed cameras, anyone who uses their iPad 2 for work (as I do in a mixed digital/paper environment) knows how useful those are for quick Digitization of paper medium. This 7 inch Kindle Tablet is not a iPad competitor but a Nook Color foe. If all one wants is to read eBooks and some small bit of multi-media, possibly lite note taking/annotation, then a 7in Kindle Tablet may work instead of Nook.

The Kindle Tablet does not look posed to be a "Content Creation" device. I don't see it running 123 Sculpt.

I'd get a Kindle to read lots of books, but it's a one-trick pony as far as I'm concerned. The iPad's only downside that I can see is its glossy screen that makes it all but unusable outside. I'd love to see a matte option for the iPad to make it outside-friendly (also matte iMacs and Cinema Displays like in the "old" days). As for usability anywhere else, the iPad seems to have it in spades. VWD Apple!

Typing this on my nook color, essentially similar experience. I see an ipad in my future, but thats is not because the nook is bad, but they do different things.

Nook is great for casual web reading, photos and of course the superb size for bedtime book reading - a 250 bucks thats hard to say no to. It even does a fair job of youtube and runs my espn player videos too.

iPad will give me easier mail (and me.com too) and some useful performance.

If Amazon = Nook color with faster processor at same prices its a winner

The reading mans iPad? Perhaps... it certainly works well enough.

I don't see how its any BETTER than 7" galaxy tab which can be had cheap enough. That was a lacklustre experience enough to compel me to buy an iPad.

I know a few people who have bought iPads and don't use them to their full potential. I'm sure there must be some early-adopter Android users out there who also have a device sitting in a drawer or something.

Hypothetically speaking, could these people get hold of the Amazon Kindle version of the OS and apps and install them on another Android device? If it could be done, I wonder if this would impact the sale of AmazonKindle?

My wife is a big fan of the Kindle, just bought another. Her enthusiasm is based on very low weight, ease and low cost shopping, large library, good form factor like a paper back book, etc. It's only down side is the lack of color for cookbooks. So I will probably get one for her, but I don't think of it as a competitor for iPad.

Amazon did the smart thing to maximize the movement to tablets for themselves. They built a better reader on the 7 " format acceptable for readers. Despite having many other assets to back a wider business, they lack some that are critical … connections to the office environment, other branded devices to share media content, and a serious e-pub business outside the US.

While Amazon succeeds, Apple will not suffer … in fact they may gain. Users will see the new Kindle as an Amazon device, not an Android device, even though it starts on a forked version. The real threat is to Android based mid range tablets if they come to exist. Apple is better off with Amazon winning in the reader and low end tablet segments than with Android based competitors succeeding in this space.

And Apple's future is not particularly affected by the Kindle. Their future is Asia and the American living room … and the new Kindle will not threaten either. Amazon has done well to skate to where the puck is re tablets used as readers. Before they can expand this beachhead … Apple will have moved the puck again. That's what the world class innovator and disruptor does with 1st mover advantage.

MK

I agonised about buying an eBook reader for weeks and finally succumbed and bought a Sony reader. This was well before the iPad came out, but when it did, I bought the 64GB WiFi+3G version. The Sony got packed back in its original box and stored under my desk.

I recently brought out the Sony and loaded it with the same books I am reading on my iPad, mainly because my computer-hating wife has fallen in love with the iPad and until I get another one, she and the grandkid will have first use of the current iPad no matter what!

The other reason that the Sony has been resurrected is that it is also now the WC-Device -- due to recent illness I have to spend an awful long time on the WC each day, and there is no way that the iPad will ever enter the bathroom.

For me, the whole concept of eBook readers has changed from being my main reading device to becoming a means of distraction whilst sitting on the toilet!