Amazon to launch Kindle 4 in the next couple of months

Hold your horses, nothing is official, but Amazon is playing a game we’ve seen before and we’re almost sure there’s a pattern behind all this.

Amazon has just cut the price of the refurbished WiFi only Kindle to $99 and $129 for the 3G module, which was exactly the stunt they pulled a month before launching the Kindle 3.

With this in mind, there’s a chance that the Kindle 4 will launch sometime in early September. This scenario would confirm the speculations roaming the internet in the last few months, which claim that Amazon intends to launch both a new Kindle and a duo of Android tablets, both 7 and 10 inches in diagonal.

The future Kindle is said to come with a touch screen and also pack a better eInk solution, as each new of their e-readers used a better eInk screen. This move will blur the lines between e-reader and tablet and my guess is that that’s what Amazon is all about. If they’ll be able to sell the new Kindle as a touch screen tablet and keep the same (or similar) price, they might just take the tablet market by storm.

The future Kindle might be all screen

Also, the future Kindle is said to come with more Flash memory and will feature a “cleaner design”, which might mean some chic plastic, trying to mimic the iPad.  The physical buttons will completely disappear and everything will be done via the touchscreen, so there’s a chance that the new Kindle will be, like the Nook Color, oriented towards entertainment (browsing, music, some gaming) as well.

As for the rumored tablet, the main rule is “low cost”.  Amazon will use screens that only support two finger gestures, there will be no cameras and the chassis might be completely out of plastic. On the bright side, Amazon will probably bundle the slate with some of their other products and services, so the entire package might just look damn attractive.

For now, it’s best if you would postpone buying a Kindle, considering that the next one is probably weeks away from launch. Or, at least, if you’ll buy one, keep in mind that your neighbor and some random guy in traffic might brag with their Kindle 4 while you’ve just spent money (true, not a lot) on a fossilized Kindle 3. We’ll let you know more as Amazon will grace us with updates.

Tags: Amazon Kindle, ebook reader

Last updated: March 27, 2012 | Published: August 13th, 2011 | Add the first comment!