Amazon may release 7.85″ Kindle Fire in August

Amazon is said to be planning to release a new Kindle Fire in August. The model would have a 7.85-inch screen and be thinner than the current Fire tablet. The new Amazon tablet would cost $199 just like the current model.

Not only will Amazon’s new tablet have a slightly larger screen than the current model, according to Digitimes, the successor to the current Kindle Fire tablet would also be thinner. According to Digitimes, this has been achieved by completely laminating the LCD with the touch layer, so that the air layer, and therefore also the internal reflections between the two layers, are eliminated. This makes the screen more visible with ambient light and a higher contrast can be achieved.

Using the lamination process would increase the production cost of the new Amazon tablet by about $10. According to Digitimes, this will make it difficult to maintain the current price of $199, but increasing competition would force Amazon to do so.

For example, Google announced the Nexus 7 tablet at its Google I/O event. That tablet is equipped with a Tegra 3-soc, has a 7 “ips screen with 1200 by 800 pixels and is offered for $199. Google will also offer music, videos and possibly e-books via its Google Play store. store, following the same business model as Amazon with its Kindle series.

Amazon shipped 750,000 Kindle Fire tablets to retail stores in the first quarter, up from 4.8 million in the fourth quarter of last year. It is not known who will be the supplier of the LCD in the new Amazon tablet, but there are rumors that LG and AU Optronics will supply the LCD for a possible iPad Mini with the same screen size as the new Kindle Fire.

Amazon Kindle Fire, current model