Amazon partners Baidu to launch Fire tablet in China

Amazon has not disclosed sales figures for its tablets but said this week that it sold “millions” following the launch of a new line of Fire tablets which included one priced at $50. By launching a tablet aimed squarely at readers, Kindle hopes to convince people that this tablet can be just as good as an e-reader – and does more because it’s a proper, Internet-connected device with a color screen.

Amazon has announced that it has teamed up with Baidu in China to launch the Amazon Fire Tablet in the country. Featuring a widescreen 1280 x 800 HD display with over 1 million pixels-Fire HD is flawless for viewing vibrant magazines, flipping through colorful comic book pages, or perusing attractive picture books. It features MicroSD card slot, glossy backs in black, magenta, blue and tangerine colors and access to Amazon Underground. The Fire HD 8 Reader’s Edition includes a 30-day trial of Audible, with more than 180,000 professionally narrated titles. From the outset, it’s already a decent small tablet. The feature, which can be turned off, also offers warm color filters and lets users fine-tune the color settings to their preference.

Perhaps the biggest selling point of the reader-friendly version of the Fire HD is Amazon’s Blue Shade technology, which cuts blue light exposure before bedtime. Plus, it extends your battery life by up to 25% while reading at default Blue Shade brightness. In other words, the Reader’s Edition is designed for reading e-books – but it can do a lot of other things, too. What’s more, the Reader’s Edition also comes shipped with a rustic leather case which Amazon claims mimics the feel of a real book, for comfortable reading. Again, these features are already available on other Amazon tablets, so it’s essentially a repackaging of an existing product for a specific use-case.

The tablet also includes the Bookerly font and Word Runner which have the objective of making reading more easy on electronic devices.