Amazon launches £50 Fire tablet

The low-cost tablet market has undergone a big shakeup with Amazon’s announcement of a new Fire tablet that costs just 49.99.

Called simply ‘Fire’, the Android device has a 1024×600 seven inch screen, 1GB of RAM, 1.3 GHz quad-core processor, and both front (2MB, 720p, HD video) and rear facing cameras. On-board storage is limited to 8GB although this can be expanded with SD cards. Battery life is pegged at seven hours.

There’s unlimited cloud storage for Amazon content and photos taken with Fire devices. It also comes pre-installed with Amazon Underground, which offers a selection of free apps from Amazon partners.

The Fire is due out on September 30th.

The retailer is also offering the devices in a six-pack, with the sixth being free. Presumably this is aimed at offices and schools as opposed to those wanting one tablet for each room.

Amazon’s Fire range now includes a new Fire Kids Edition (99.99), the Fire HD 6 (79), Fire HD 8 (129.99) and Fire HD 10 (169.99). It also has three e-readers – the Kindle (59.99), Kindle Paperwhite (109.99) and Kindle Voyage (169.99).