(By Balaseshan) The battle of tablets are getting severe with makers flooding in their powerful weapons targeting the leader Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad. Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has unveiled its most powerful weapons -- Kindle Fire HD in two variants.
Amazon, which captured 22% of U.S. tablet sales in nine months, is hoping to take a huge pie this year in the tablet market from Apple. Amazon said Thursday it's taking on the high-end with Kindle Fire HD -- the next generation of Kindle Fire tablet.
The all-new Kindle Fire HD 7-inch tablet -- with a stunning HD display, the fastest Wi-Fi, exclusive HD audio with two stereo speakers and Dolby Digital Plus, 16 or 32 GB of storage, weighs 13.9 ounces and a dual-core 1.2GHz OMAP 4460 processor -- is $199 and is available for shipping next Friday.
Amazon also came out with a new variant -- Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch, which starts at $299, and Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch 4G that starts at $499. Both the 8.9-inch versions of Kindle Fire HD will be available for shipping on November 20. The 8.9-inch versions comes with dual-core 1.5 GHz OMAP 4470 processor and weighs 20 ounces.
Additionally, Amazon is introducing an all-new upgraded version of the best-selling standard definition Kindle Fire with a faster processor, twice the memory and longer battery life -- for an even lower breakthrough price of $159. The Kindle Fire with upgraded assets will begin shipping on September 14.
AMZN closed Thursday's regular session up 2.10% at $251.38. The stock has been trading between $166.97 and $252.70 for the past 52 weeks.