Folks looking forward to the new Kindle Fire tablet will be happy to know Hulu Plus and ESPN ScoreCenter have been added to the Fire’s features. And, those who ordered the Kindle Fire will also be happy to know the tablet is shipping today, a day earlier than scheduled. Amazon’s other new Kindle models — The Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G — will ship tomorrow, six days earlier than was scheduled. Maybe Amazon is looking to get a leg up on Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet, which is expected to hit stores this Thursday.
Hulu Plus costs $7.99 per month for access to TV shows and movies with limited advertising. ESPN ScoreCenter is a free downloadable app.
The Kindle Fire provides an affordable entry into the tablet world. The $199 device boasts many of the features more expensive tablets provide, such as checking email, browsing, social integration, watching streaming movies, and running apps.
Apple’s iPad, while first to pioneer the tablet market, still comes in pricey at $499 for their base model. Toshiba’s Thrive starts at $379. Samsung’s 7″ Galaxy Tab starts at $199. Barne’s & Noble’s Nook Tablet is competitive with the Fire with an MSRP of $249.
[showhide type=”pressrelease”]Kindle Fire, already the bestselling item on Amazon.com, will start arriving on customers’ doorsteps one day early
SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Nov. 14, 2011– (NASDAQ: AMZN) – Amazon.com today announced it is shipping Kindle Fire, already the bestselling item on Amazon.com, one day early. Kindle Fire offers more than 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, books, magazines, apps and games, as well as free storage of Amazon digital content in the Amazon Cloud, Whispersync for books and movies, a 14.6 ounce design that’s easy to hold with one hand, a vibrant color touch screen, a powerful dual-core processor and Amazon Silk – Amazon’s new revolutionary web browser that accelerates the power of the mobile device by using the computing speed and power of the Amazon Web Services cloud – all for only $199. To learn more about Kindle Fire, visit www.amazon.com/kindlefire.
“We’re thrilled to be able to ship Kindle Fire to our customers earlier than we expected. Kindle Fire quickly became the bestselling item across all of Amazon.com, and based on customer response we’re building millions more than we’d planned,” said Dave Limp, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “Customers are excited about Kindle Fire because it is a premium product at the non-premium price of only $199.”
Kindle Fire offers customers a fully-integrated service with instant access to over 18 million movies, TV shows, magazines, newspapers, books, songs, apps and games, including:
- Over 100,000 movies and TV shows from Amazon Instant Video
- Over 17,000,000 songs from Amazon MP3
- Millions of books
- Over 400 full-color magazines and newspapers
- 100 exclusive graphic novels from DC Comics, including Watchmen, the bestselling graphic novel of all time
- Several thousand apps and games, including Netflix, Pandora, Hulu Plus, Rhapsody, and games fromElectronic Arts, Zynga and Rovio
- A free month of Amazon Prime, which offers two-day shipping and access to nearly 13,000 movies and TV shows available to stream at no additional cost and exclusive access to over 5,000 popular books from the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library to read on any Kindle device at no additional cost and with no due dates
Early comments from product reviewers on Kindle Fire include:
“The Kindle Fire is a 7-inch tablet that links seamlessly with Amazon’s impressive collection of digital music, video, magazine, and book services in one easy-to-use package. It boasts a great Web browser, and its curated Android app store includes most of the big must-have apps (such as Netflix, Pandora, and Hulu). The Fire has an ultra-affordable price tag, and the screen quality is exceptional for the price.” – CNET
“The Fire is a marvelous device.” – Chicago Sun-Times
“It sounds horribly corny, but you’ll feel a little powerful using the Fire, in a consumer couch potato kind of way. The volume of stuff that’s available for your brain to munch on is so immense and easy to grab that the Fire feels massive beyond its small-ish frame—which, by the way, is sturdy and satisfying to hold, like a good paperback. A paperback filled with internet magic and delectable liquid crystal. The Kindle Fire is a spigot, and Prime tastes delicious.” – Gizmodo
“It bakes in books, music, movies, apps/games, magazines, multi-tasking, universal search, easy access to anything you have in Amazon’s cloud, and a sense that this device and Amazon know you.” – Mashable
“The Kindle Fire’s killer feature may be its access to the free streaming movies and TV shows that are among the benefits of subscribing to Amazon Prime, the company’s $79-a-year premium program. (A free 30-day subscription to the service is included with the Kindle Fire.)” – The world’s leading consumer magazine
“The culmination of 17 years of work, the Kindle Fire is the missing piece of the company’s vast corporate puzzle, bringing into harmony nearly every discordant service the company has built since CEO Jeff Bezos first set up shop in his garage in 1994.” – Fortune
Kindle Fire orders are fulfilled on a first-come first-served basis. Customers can purchase now atwww.amazon.com/kindlefire.
For high-resolution images of Kindle Fire, visit www.amazon.com/pr/kindle.[/showhide]
tonight when we finished, Hey mom you know that could be me. You know reandig is tough for me, and I have a hard time. I told him I know, but you can do anything you dream of My son’s reply I know mama, and I know I’m not alone. . Your book choked me up as a mom because I see his struggle, but his response left me thinking he will rise above this and he will do great. He also left me blubbering! Thank you for this book and how the story is told he heard he could do this thing called life and come out on top.