Amazon to Launch $50 6 Inch Tablet for the Holidays
posted Sunday Sep 13, 2015 by Nicholas DiMeo
When most people see $50 tablets, they usually assume it's a cheap, piece of junk Android that's probably infected with a ton of malware. But what if a big name company were to release a super affordable tablet? Enter Amazon. The company announced this week that it has plans to put out a Fire-branded tablet for this holiday season.
Coming in at just $50, Amazon hopes this 6-inch tablet will attract more people to its tablets. The higher-priced Fire HDX, among its other offerings, just haven't done well in the market. This holiday tablet won't have any of the bells and whistles of the typical ones on the market, but will be good for video streaming and shopping on Amazon. That'll pretty much be it. It has been confirmed that the tablet will only have a mono speaker instead of stereo, and it will also have a lower-resolution screen, less battery life, and it will be made of cheaper parts.
Reports have come in that the $50 tablet will be part of a new line that will include an 8-inch and 10-inch screen at affordable prices, too. While cheap tablets are popular among those who don't understand the technology and only want a throwaway device, will a similar device from Amazon affect the brand's reputation with quality? Forrester Research analyst Frank Gillett adds insight in to what Amazon has to overcome.
Will people tolerate a potentially inferior experience just because a tablet is $50? Amazon has to be very careful about what they're giving up to get to that low price point.
With the recent failure of the Fire Phone, and a $600 price tag on the most expensive Fire tablet, is a $50 6-inch option from Amazon a smart move? There is no word yet on if the tablet would be ad-supported, but one could assume that it would be, similar to that of the $99 Fire tablet; the same tablet rings up at $114 without ads. Amazon currently holds less than 1 percent of the US tablet market, so there is a lot riding on this decision.
