Amazon retools tablet line to attract budget-minded consumers

While Apple seems content to push prices higher and higher with each new tablet release, Amazon is taking the opposite approach this year and reducing the cost of nearly all tablets in their Fire HD lineup.

The retailer is also introducing an entirely new tablet to the lineup, the $50, 7-inch Fire tablet. It’s outfitted with a Quad-core 1.3 GHz processor, 8GB of storage, single-band Wi-Fi and a resolution slightly less than HD.

In addition, the new Fire HD Kids edition has plummeted in price by $50 and increased in screen size form 6-inches to 7-inches. It also still comes with 1 year of Amazon FreeTime Unlimited, the kid-proof case and the 2-year worry-free guarantee in case a kid smashed it.

Amazon is also introducing two more budget tablets, an 8-inch model and a 10-inch model. While neither tablet supports the dazzling resolution of the HDX series, both offer a respectable 720p resolution of 1280 x 800. Both also offer Dolby Atmos support for audio, dual stereo speakers, dual-band Wi-Fi, Quad-core processors up to 1.5 GHz and expandable memory up to 128GB.

Outside of the tablet changes, Amazon also announced a push into 4K support on the Fire TV platform as well as Alexa voice support without raising the $99 price on the set-top box. This is the first set-top box from a major manufacturer to include 4K support, a feature that Apple ignored when creating the new Apple.

With the push to 4K, the Fire TV has a stronger processor, 2GB of memory, support for dual-band 802.11ac and a dedicated graphics engine. Amazon also announced a $50 version of the Fire TV streaming stick with Alexa voice support in the remote control and a $140 gaming edition of the Fire TV, which includes two bundled games valued at $25, a 32 GB microSD card and the Fire TV game controller (regularly $40).

All of the new tablets are currently available for preordering with release dates on September 30, 2015. The Fire TV products will be available on October 5, 2015 with the Fire TV stick with the voice remote available on October 21, 2105.

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