Amazon’s Amazing Tablet Plans

Amazon looks to be diving into the mêlée that is tablet wars with its own Amazon Android branded slate.

Word is that Taiwanese manufacturer Quanta has received orders from Amazon to begin building as many as 800,000 tablet devices per month with the aim to start flogging them in the latter half of this year.

This seems an obvious move for the online retailer who already has an impressive amount of digital content to choose from including movies, TV, music and e-books – not to mention its own Kindle apps.

Sources inside “upstream component makers” reckon that Amazon’s business could add up to $3.5 billion to Quanta’s revenue for 2011. Quanta is the firm responsible for building RIM’s PlayBook which is put together pretty tidily so that bodes well for Amazon.

Forrester researcher, Sarah Rotman, says that Amazon may actually be the name to put the squeeze on Apple: “Amazon could create a compelling Android- or Linux-based tablet offering easy access to Amazon’s storefront—including its forthcoming Android app store—and unique Amazon features like one-click purchasing, Amazon Prime service, and its recommendations engine,”

Basically this could prove to be a knock-out combo if Amazon manages to design and build a decent slab of sexy colour touchscreen touting hardware with easy access to its store containing MP3s, Kindle e-books, streaming TV and movies, and its planned branded Android Appstore. Let’s face it – the Kindle is doing pretty well – you can even loan Kindle e-books now! 😉

iPad may need to start looking over its shoulder soon.

The question is whether the Amazon tablet will be using a regular LCD tablet touchscreen or will it be rocking colour e-ink?