Amazon to Unveil the ‘Kindle Fire’ Tablet Wednesday, to Ship in November

Amazon is set to unveil its new tablet to be called the Kindle Fire on Wednesday at a press event, though the device won't ship until November, according to Tech Crunch.

The highly anticipated Kindle Fire was chosen to be the name of the Amazon tablet to differentiate it from other Kindles, Tech Crunch reported. The Kindle Fire is set to rival Apple's iPad as a serious contender in the battle for the best tablet computer and possibly oust the Barnes and Noble Nook Color completely.

The Kindle Fire will have a 7-inch backlit, multi-color display running on a custom Amazon Kindle version of Google's Android operating system.

Most notably, it will likely be priced at $250, nearly half the cost of an iPad. In addition to the low price point, the Kindle Fire is likely to include a membership to Amazon Prime for free, which regularly costs $79 for the year.

While the resolution is currently unknown, the tablet will have likely have a single-core processor, 6 GB of internal storage, a micro-USB port and speakers on top. Tech Crunch reported that it will closely resemble the BlackBerry PlayBook, as it was designed and built by the same manufacturer, Quanta.

Along with access to Amazon's Kindle bookstore for e-books, the altered version of the Android OS grants Kindle Fire owners access to a separate, different Android Appstore which will have a load of apps available, though not as many as Google's Android Market.

The device is also rumored to have a streaming video service in addition to magazine subscriptions, according to Peter Kafka of All Things D.

According to Tech Crunch, while Amazon's Kindle Fire will be first seen on Wednesday, it will not be released until November, just in time for the holiday season.