Amazon unveiled its Kindle Fire tablet on Wednesday, taking aim at Apple's iPad by extending its brand into the market of full-colour multipurpose gadgets.
Company CEO Jeff Bezos revealed the US$199 tablet computer at a conference in New York City, where he also pulled the curtain back on a series of new e-readers.
The Kindle Fire has a seven-inch display, making it half the size of the iPad and a close match with Barnes & Nobles' Nook Colour tablet. Sleek black casing gives the device a look similar to the Blackberry Playbook, a RIM tablet that hasn't been met with commercial success.
Like its predecessors, the Kindle Fire tablet aims to be a platform for games, movies, music and other applications.
A 30-second commercial touts the gadget's ability to store MP3s, newspapers, Kindle books, Android applications and more.
"From Kindle, Fire is born," a narrator says in the video as a hand taps the Fire, maneuvering between magazines and videos on the device's touch screen.
The advertisement is reminiscent of Apple's iPad commercials, which also feature tight close-ups of hands swiping between the tablet's applications.
But at Wednesday's unveiling, Bezos tried to emphasize how the Kindle Fire stood apart from its rivals.
Unlike the iPad, the Kindle Fire doesn't need to be backed up on a personal computer. Instead, users can back up their contents wirelessly on Amazon's servers.
"That model that you have to back up your own content is a broken model. We want to take responsibility for that," Bezos told reporters at the event.
The Kindle Fire runs a version of Google's Android software, which is also used by other iPad rivals such as Sony's Tablet S.
Much like Apple's app store, Fire users will have to download applications through Amazon's android store.
The Kindle Fire is expected to go on sale on November 15.
New e-readers
Bezos also used the New York conference to introduce a series of plain Kindles, adding to its family of best selling e-readers.
Amazon's new generation Kindle will sell at $79. The Kindle Touch and similar Kindle Touch 3G will run between $99 and $149.
The Seattle-based company is also rolling out its first black-and-white Kindle with a touch screen. The device will cost $99.
