Over at TechCrunch, MG Siegler is reporting that he`s had some hands on time with the Amazon Tablet and has some updates to the rumours we heard about earlier this week. First up, the Amazon Tablet appears to be a forked build of Android based on a 2.1 or earlier version of Android, it features a customised Amazon themed interface on top, heavy on the Black, Dark Blue and Orange colours.
Hardware wise, the form factor is similar to that of the BlackBerry Playbook, so it`s based on a back-lit 7″ capacative multi-touch screen, but only 2 finger multi-touch not 10 like some of the Honeycomb tablets out there. It does NOT have a camera, it also comes with what appears to be 6Gb of internal storage, so it appears that Amazon will be heavily relying on its streaming offerings such as Amazon Instant (Video streaming), Cloud Player (Music streaming/storage) and of course their Kindle and Amazon App store, there appears to be no Google involvement which means no Google Apps or Market either.
At launch, which Amazon are saying is aimed at late November, it will be a WiFi only model at a cost of $250, with Amazon reported to be talking to US cariers about 3G versions now so the 3G version could start around the $300-350 mark, when it`s launched.
All up alot of the services an Amazon tablet will be using remain US only so unless the rumoured Australian Amazon store comes through, this may not launch here in Australia.
No thank you…. Specs and soso and the android version is a show stopper!
If I want a good ereader then ill buy a kindle