Amazon.com's long-rumored tablets to launch in August / September timeframe: report

Amazon.com's tablets, which have been rumored to be coming "before the end of 2011," might be sooner than we think. A DigiTimes report cites Taiwan-based component makers as saying the tablets could arrive as soon as August or September.

Despite many manufacturers dropping their Android tablet sales estimates, Amazon.com is targeting global sales of four million units for 2011. Reportedly, the new tablets would use Texas Instruments processors, Taiwan-based Wintek's touch panels, ILI Technology for LCD driver ICs and Quanta Computer for assembly.

Earlier reports said, however, that Amazon.com's tablets would come in two forms, one a dual-core entry level unit and another in quad-core form. Both had been rumored to carry NVIDIA processors, with the quad-core units sporting NVIDIA's Kal-El processor, which runs at a 500 percent performance improvement over the currently shipping dual-core Tegra 2.

Kal-El had been expected to arrive in August on tablets, with smartphone to see their own versions later in the year.

Recently, stories have been written indicating that consumers don't want tablets, but iPads, meaning they don't see the usefulness of a non-iPad tablet. Amazon.com will have to work past that, and convince consumers that an Android tablet is in their best interests.

Difficult as that sounds, considering how Amazon.com "saved" the Kindle, when the iPad was supposed to be its death knell, don't put anything past the company.