Amazon will release a $50 tablet in time for the Christmas sales.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the 6-inch screen tablet comes with a mono speaker and is priced much lower than Amazon’s Fire tablet. The Fire sells for $99.
Amazon also plans to release 8-inch and 10-inch screen tablets, the report said.
While other Amazon Fire tablets show advertisements as screen savers, it was not clear if the new 6-inch tablet’s cost included ads.
The move is part of a cunning plan to attract buyers looking for a simple device for straightforward tasks like streaming video at home and shopping on Amazon.com.
The inexpensive tablet will have compromises like inferior screen quality, durability or battery life in comparison to more expensive tablets like Amazon’s larger Fire.
Chief Executive Jeff Bezos has said, the company prefers to make money by selling services that work with the devices, like e-books and video rentals.
He set a $50 price tag for versions of both the Fire tablet and Kindle e-reader, viewing the rock-bottom prices as a crucial lure for a more cost-conscious group of buyers.
E-reader screen technology from its vendors ultimately proved too expensive to drop the retail price, the people said. Amazon’s cheapest Kindle sells for $79.
Analysts are less enthusiastic about the idea claiming that halving the price for a tablet which is less useful defeats the purpose.
