Edible Apple

Bloomberg broke the news this morning regarding Amazon’s upcoming Kindle Fire Tablet. With a surprisingly low pricepoint of just $199, the Kindle Fire may prove to be the first real competitor to the iPad we’ve seen in the marketplace.

Sporting a 7-inch display and running Android underneath the hood, Amazon is hoping to leverage their expertise in media content delivery to succeed where many other tablet competitors have failed. The HP TouchPad, for example, was discontinued shortly after its release amid dreadfully low sales figures while RIM’s Playbook tablet has been equally unimpressive in the marketplace.

But far from trying to beat the iPad at it’s own game, Amazon is positioning the Knidle as a media consumption device without some of the bells and whistles of the iPad. For example, the Kindle Fire lacks a built-in camera and a microphone. Further, while wi-fi functionality is included, there are no 3G options for the Kindle Fire.

Kindle Fire buyers will be given a free 30-day trial of Amazon Prime, an annual membership that typically costs $79 and affords benefits such as streaming video and free 2-day shipping.

Some other Kindle Fire features include a dual-core processor, a Gorilla Glass protected IPS display. It also is pretty svelte, measuring in at only 14.6 ounces.

“I hop you see what we’re doing here,” Bezos explained during the event. “Premium products at non-premium prices. This is the way Amazon has operated for its entire history.”

In addition to the Kindle Fire, Amazon today introduced a $99 touchscreen Kindle dubbed the Kindle Touch (hmm, sounds familiar) along with a lower-priced version of its trusty e-ink Kindle for just $79.

You can check out a liveblog of Amazon’s ongoing tablet event over at This is my Next.