Amazon.com, which is known for its aggressive pricing strategy, didn't disappoint when setting a value on its new tablet - the Kindle Fire - which will be available for $199. The market was expecting a price in the region of $250. At $199, the 7-inch Android-based tablet is priced 60 percent below that of its competitors.

Kindle Fire, which runs on Amazon's customized version of the Android OS and is powered by a dual-core OMAP 4 processor from Texas Instruments, also sports a multi-touch display with IPS (In-Plane Switching) technology and provides 1024x600 pixel resolution at 169 ppi with 16 million colors. In addition, it offers a battery life of upto 8 hours of continuous reading or 7.5 hours of video playback, with the wireless turned off.

The tablet, which is now available for preorder, should be shipped from Nov.15. The Amazon Kindle Fire will come with a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime and extra content like the capacity to stream movies.

At the outset, it must be said that the Kindle Fire addresses a different market and may not be a real competitor to the iPad2. The Amazon.com product mainly targets customers who use tablets lightly and have a tight budget. It lacks a camera, which may disappoint photo geeks, and also takes away the feature of video calling, a must-have feature in tablets.

At the same time, content is an area where Amazon will hold an advantage, with the device capable of leveraging Amazon's recent cloud drive storage capability.

The Kindle Fire could be an excellent alternative to the iPad for price-conscious consumers and investors in Amazon will be hoping that the tablet paves a new path in the market for Android-based tablets, helping the company to second position (next only to Apple) in terms of market share, in the coming quarter.

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