Amazon set to launch tablets in August or September?

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has practically confirmed that the company is working on tablets. The only question is when we’ll finally see them. Now it seems Amazon may be gearing up to launch the tablets in August or September, according to the Taiwanese news site Digitimes.

Component makers in Taiwan tell the site that the launch is being timed so that Amazon has tablets ready for the holiday season in the US. Amazon is expected to ship between 700,000 and 800,000 tablet units monthly, or between 3.5 million and 4 million tablets this year. The company is also planning to include access to its streaming movie service on the tablets (no big surprise there), the sources say.

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Shortly after Bezos strongly hinted that tablets were in the works, the mobile site Boy Genius Report also claimed that Amazon was working on dual-core and quad-core tablet models for release later this year. The tablets, naturally, are expected to run Android.

Given the massive success Barnes and Noble is seeing with its Nook Color, which has gotten even more tablet-like with a recent update, Amazon will definitely have to retaliate in full force. Amazon will likely have a tablet right at the Nook Color’s $250 price range and a more expensive one that will be a legitimate competitor to the iPad and Android tablets. And while this isn’t tablet related, we can also expect Amazon to release a touch-enabled Kindle later this year since B&N and Kobo have already done the same.

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