Amazon launches the Kindle Fire

Amazon launched its Kindle Fire touchscreen device at an event in New York yesterday, as well as a new range of enhanced Kindles.

The Fire – “a premium product, not at a premium price” – is retailing in the US for just under $200, significantly less than the $500 iPad, with 18 million songs, books, TV shows and films. The full-colour touchscreen tablet has been “designed to make buying and consuming content easier”.

The Kindle Fire, which will be available on 15 November, will come with a free 30-day subscription to the Amazon Prime streaming video service and free three-month subscriptions to digital editions of Conde Nast magazines including Vanity Fair, GQ and Glamour.

Hearst, Conde Nast and Meredith have all signed up to put their content on the new device.

Forrester has forecast sales of three million during Q4, downgrading previous estimates because of its late shipping date. While online pre-orders start now, the new tablets won’t be in some of the big retailers until late in the shopping season.

Amazon has partnered with Fox, CBS and NBC Universal to stream 100,000 films and TV shows through Amazon Prime. Amazon’s library of 17 million songs, starting at $0.69 per download, will also be available on Fire.

Watch the launch video here (via The Guardian).