BY EVAN THOMAS ANCHOR NATHAN BYRNE Is Amazon looking to rekindle its tablet momentum from earlier this year? CNET cites a “credible source” who says Amazon will ship a successor to the popular Kindle Fire this summer. There isn’t any concrete information on the specification front, but CNET says its source indicated the Fire 2 would ship with discrete volume controls and a camera. It’s also expected that pricing will remain the same — at or around $200. That’s the price point to beat in the tablet industry right now. Google’s increasingly-rumored tablet could go for the same, and The Verge wonders — how could Amazon get an edge? “If Amazon really wants to compete with Google on price, we might see the Kindle Fire with special offers make its first appearance — a new Kindle Fire at less than $199 would certainly give Google's rumored tablet some strong competition.” But not with the iPad, says WebProNews. Any wrestling over market share is likely to happen elsewhere. “Apart from the release date, little else is known about the Kindle Fire 2. While the new tablet is unlikely to present any more of a threat to the iPad than its predecessor, you can bet it will make a major splash in the non-iPad tablet market.” Regardless of its ability to stand up to the iPad, Wired says, whatever Amazon presents could use a spec upgrade. “There are no details yet on what sort of internals Amazon would pack into the Fire 2, but it’s worth keeping in mind that the first Fire had a sluggish CPU, lower resolution 1024×600 display and overall poor performance for just about anything outside of streaming video.” Despite these limitations, the Fire has attracted a decent developer ecosystem already. VentureBeat says the only way to go is up. “…companies’ willingness to make a Kindle-Fire-compatible Android app shows that the device has a fair amount of traction. Launching a more-powerful and better-featured second-gen Fire at the same $200 price point would help get even more folks on board…” If you like the idea of an upgrade, you might not have long to wait. CNET’s source says Amazon’s looking at a July 31 launch date.
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