WASHINGTON — Amazon will release a 6-inch, $50 tablet in time for the holiday season, which would be one of the cheapest tablets on the market.
The new tablet would be half the price of the Fire HD 6-inch tablet, which has struggled to attract buyers, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Amazon also will release 8- and 10- inch tablets, the Journal reports, citing people familiar with the matter.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has previously told The Journal that the company aims to make money on such products as e-books and video rentals, and toward that end it is willing to make basically nothing on the devices themselves.
You’ll make some trade-offs for the low price, though: The Journal says that the new tablet will have a mono speaker, rather than a stereo setup, and inexpensive tablets generally have shorter battery life and lower-resolution screens.
“Amazon has to be very careful about what they’re giving up to get to that low price point,” an analyst tells The Journal.
In addition to the woes of the Fire HD tablet, the Fire phone has been a sales disaster, The Journal reports.
