AMAZON UPS KINDLE FIRE ORDERS FROM MANUFACTURERS AGAIN

Amazon has reportedly increased Kindle Fire orders with its manufacturing partners, for the second time, following stronger than expected demand for its premier tablet. DigiTimes reports that more than 5 million units are now on order in 2011 as pre-orders for the $199 tablet remain strong; the online retailer took nearly 100,000 pre-orders on the first day of pre-sales availability alone. Amazon had already increased its orders last quarter according to the site’s anonymous industry sources, from 3.5 million to 4 million units. The Kindle Fire will launch on November 15th featuring a 7-inch display, a soft-touch case and deep integration with numerous Amazon services, granting users access to streaming music, streaming movies and of course, a huge library of eBooks.

LEAK: NOOK TABLET LAUNCHING NOVEMBER 16 FOR $249

Engadget has obtained a number of documents confirming the impending launch of the first bona fide tablet in the Nook line, and lo and behold, the Nook Tablet will end up being a dead-ringer for the Nook Color that already exists. What we're looking at is a 7-inch VividView IPS color touchpanel with a 1024 x 600 screen resolution (that's 169 pixels per inch), a 1.2GHz dual-core OMAP4 processor, 1GB of RAM, dimensions of 8.1- x 5- x 0.48-inches, 16GB of inbuilt storage, a microSD expansion slot, roughly eight hours of battery life with WiFi switched off (that sinks to four hours with videos playing back), 802.11b/g/n WiFi and support for a smorgasbord of file formats including ePUB, PDF, XLS, DOC, PPT, TXT, DOCM, Flash, JPG, MP3, MP4 and AAC.

Engadget also confirmed that it'll ship for $249 here in the States, $50 more than Amazon's Kindle Fire. So, why does B&N think you'll pony up the extra? For one, the Nook Tablet has twice the RAM and twice the storage compared to its closest rival, while also being lighter and having access to over two million books, magazines and newspapers.

IS AMAZON SELLING THE KINDLE FIRE AT A LOSS?

A preliminary virtual estimate conducted by the IHS iSuppli Teardown Analysis Service places Kindle Fire’s bill of materials (BOM) cost at $191.65. With the addition of manufacturing expenses, the total cost to produce the Kindle Fire rises to $209.63. Could Amazon be trying to keep the retail price down to move more units and ultimately more merchandise?

IHS goes on to say the real benefit of the Kindle Fire to Amazon will not be in selling hardware or digital content. Rather, the Kindle Fire, and the content demand it stimulates, will serve to promote sales of the kinds of physical goods that comprise the majority of Amazon’s business. Amazon doesn’t make a substantial profit on sales of Kindle hardware and content such as e-books and music. Instead, the Seattle-based online-retail giant generates its profits on sales of shoes, diapers, and every other kind of physical product imaginable. Similar to Walmart and other large brick-and-motor retailers, Amazon’s content business is designed to lure in consumers to buy such everyday goods as well as other money-making items.