Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos shows off the Kindle Fire, a tablet device designed to build on the success of the company's e-reader and to challenge the dominance of Apple's iPad.
The seven-inch device will let users download books, magazines, newspapers, videos and music and will be available from November 25 in the US. Amazon is selling the device for $199, significantly undercutting the iPad that starts selling for almost $500.
The long-awaited device is smaller than the Apple's 10-inch iPad, weighs 14.6 ounces and has a dual-core processor. And analysts said that it's the price that may prove the greatest threat to Apple, which has managed to sell millions of iPads despite the lacklustre recovery in most western economies.
Decked out in jeans, white shirt and a jacket, Amazon's founder and chief executive, Jeff Bezos, told an audience in New York that "this is unbelievable value. What we're doing is making premium products and offering them at non-premium prices."
Mr Bezos also claimed that the ability of Amazon to store all the content users download on the internet will prove a key selling point. "All of the content on this device is backed up on the cloud," said Mr Bezos. "The model where you have to back up your own content is a broken model."
