According to a note to clients from a Pacific Crest analyst regarding Amazon’s forecast for Kindle sales in 2012, the number has been greatly raised from $12.7 million to $14.9 million due to the future sale of a 9-inch model Kindle that will launch in mid-2012. Last year, there were reports circulating that Amazon did plan on launching two separate tablets at different times, so this shouldn’t be coming as too much of a surprise.

The previous “Hollywood” tablet was rumored to be a full 10 inches, but with the huge success that smaller tablets have been receiving, it could be possible that Amazon has decided to take a smaller approach or have decided to just push its launch back. Anyone feel that as long as Amazon can keep the price down like they have been doing, they should find more market success? Let us know.

Via: BGR

After Eric Schmidt was quoted in December as saying that Google would release a tablet within the next 6 months, the tech world has been digging deep with their sources to try and come up with any extra details. Famed rumor-starting extraordinaire DigiTimes has come forward with what they believe to be some of those additional specifics. How does another $199 Android-powered slab sound? According to their sources, that’s exactly what Google plans to release in the 7″ variety. A time frame for release could be between March and April with the Kindle Fire being their direct competition rather than the iPad.

Well, I guess I would be down with another $199 tablet. The more budget-friendly products we see from companies like Google and Amazon, the better chances we have at seeing the end of the $599 on-contract tablet. I’m still wondering if Motorola has sold 3 or 4 total XYBOARDs since release? Anyone taking the under on that?

Via:  DigiTimes

Intrigued by the DROID XYBOARD tablets that Verizon announced yesterday? Then you may want to take a look at these two comparison charts that pit both against the competition, including the iPad 2 and the Kindle Fire.

Both of the new XYBOARDs (10″ and 8.2″) best almost every other tablet (aside from the Transformer Prime) when it comes to specs given their slight bump in processor speed of 1.2GHz, improved screen, and 4G LTE. Is that slight bump along with an improved screen enough to turn future tablet owners away from the market stomping Fire and iPad 2? I’m not so sure, especially at prices well above both. The new tablets from Motorola start at $429 ($529 for the 10″) on contract, meaning you can get into a Fire for over $200 less without signing 2 years of your life away. If you need 4G speeds on a tablet while on the go though, then these may just end up being your option.

A release date was confirmed yesterday for December 12 (Monday), but after seeing the Galaxy Nexus get bumped from the 9th with just days to go, I wouldn’t put money on anything these days.

Versus the Kindle Fire after the break.  

It has been about a year since we saw the first major player in the Android game, the original Samsung Galaxy Tab. That particular slate kicked off the release of the Froyo tablet era followed by the barrage of Honeycomb entries in mid-2011. The world was supposed to gobble up Android tablets by the millions, overtaking the iPad on the way. Well, we all know now that that did not happen. After reading sad story after sad story of Honeycomb tablet disappointments, we are wondering now what the future of the Android tablet game looks like. Ice Cream Sandwich could breathe new life into a platform that struggled throughout much of 2011, but we won’t know until it finally arrives.

Are you still interested in them? Did you go with an iPad instead? Have you ruled out the purchase of one altogether? Will the next batch powered by quad-core processors entice you? Be sure to weigh in through the poll and with your thoughts in the comments.

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With nearly 1300 comments in our Kindle Fire contest, the folks at CompanionLink had their work cut out for them. As you may recall, they simply asked that you tell them if there was a particular productivity feature that you wish your phone had. They really just wanted to find out new ways to make your smartphone even smarter. The responses were fantastic.  Here is what they had to say:

CompanionLink:  Thanks to everyone who shared their ideas. Among all the great ideas, we noticed a huge demand for integrating nearly everything, from your home to your car to your life, with your mobile devices. We intend to do our part to push that forward, and we’re also very excited to see other industries grow in this area as technology advances!

After looking over all (yes all!) of the comments, we narrowed it down to two of our favorites.

So, without further ado, the two lucky commenters taking home a Kindle Fire are… 

Just wanted to quickly remind everyone that we have two contests currently running that both end on Friday. Both include some pretty amazing prizes that you will not want to miss out on. To enter each of them, all you have to do is answer the questions that are posed in each post. As simple as that.

• NGGG #3 brought to you by NVIDIA and the Tegra Zone – Win a Galaxy Tab 10.1 plus a prize pack that includes a Jawbone Jambox speaker and $25 gift card. In order to enter, vist the contest post and list our your top 3 favorite console games of all time.
• Two Kindle Fire Tablets brought to you by CompanionLink – Our Portland friends at CompanionLink are giving away two Kindle Fire tablets on Friday. To enter, simply head to the contest post and tell them a productivity feature that you wish your Android device had.

Good luck everyone!

Looks like the dev community is quite eager to get some ROMs going on the Kindle Fire. After receiving proper ADB access yesterday, the Fire can now be rooted with a simple click of a button. Using the SuperOneClick program (download here) your new Kindle Fire will be rooted in seconds. While this doesn’t mean you can throw on a custom ROM just yet, it is another piece to the puzzle.

Additionally per terms of the open-source agreement, Amazon has already released the source code for all to see. It is going to be interesting to see just how hot the Fire can get.

Via: AndroidForums, Amazon

I guess it’s just a video kind of morning here at Droid Life. In order to keep that theme going, we wanted to toss out this quick unboxing and hands-on that I was able to put together yesterday afternoon when my Kindle Fire finally arrived.

Some early first impressions? I love the whole experience that Amazon is bringing over the top of Android. It doesn’t necessarily feel or look anything like Android, but you still have some of the same functionality with on-screen home, back, menu and search buttons. You have a notifications bar, quick toggles for WiFi/Volume/Brightness, and most importantly, in runs all of your favorite apps.

You have also got to love the built-in Amazon cloud and shopping experience. As someone who purchases music and almost anything else he can think of through Amazon, having it all at my fingertips on a single device is lovely.

And by the way, it has already been rooted too. Instructions on the way.

I will say that the software probably needs a bug fixing update already. Something as simple as having to press the back button multiple times to go backward continues to happen to me every time I pick it up. But hey, it’s Amazon’s first attempt at their own full-blown OS skin, so we’ll try to cut them a little bit of slack. There aren’t any major bugs that I have run into through my first few hours with it.

Has anyone else picked one up? Would love to hear your early thoughts as well.