Kindle Fire
One of the first tablets to be developed was the Amazon Kindle, admittedly this was nothing like the current tablets but it was one of the first to be designed in that way. Amazon have now decided to increase the functions that are available on the Kindle and create a full on tablet called the Fire. It is a product that many people are excited about.
Amazon first introduced the Kindle as a way to increase the number of ebooks that they sold. It was clear that people didn't like reading them on a computer and that they wanted a more portable way to do it. The Kindle proved to be very popular, so popular in fact that when Apple introduced the iPad they included an ebook reader which has proved to be one of the most widely used features on the iPad. With Apple moving in on their territory it was just a matter of time before Amazon pushed back and took a shot at Apple. The result is the Kindle Fire which expands the ereader into a tablet computer, sort of.
The Kindle Fire is being offered at less than half the price of most of the other tablets out there which not surprisingly means that a lot of features had to be left off. Things like cameras and GPS are not available on the Kindle Fire. What you do get is an ebook reader that also allows you to watch video, listen to music and surf the web. It is not as capable as other tablets that you will find but it is a low cost option that may be adequate for most people.
One of the issues with the Kindle Fire is that the only way to get apps for it is from Amazon. The product was clearly designed to allow people to download books, music and videos from Amazon. This is a big part of the reason that the price is so low, they will make their money selling digital products to users. As for the apps they are limited since the only place to get them is from Amazon. Without a large number of third party developers like you would find for the apps for other tablets the options are always going to be limited.
The Amazon Kindle Fire is an interesting experiment and one that many people are waiting to see the results of. They have developed a product that is less capable than other tablets and offered it at a lower price. This may prove to be successful since most tablet users really don't use most of the features that are offered anyway. Most tablets are used primarily to watch video, play games and read books, which is exactly what the Kindle Fire is designed to do. There is little reason to pay more for a lot of capabilities that you will never use.