Amazon may release their second generation Kindle Fire as soon as next month, a full four months before the one year anniversary of the first generation Kindle Fire. While there has been plenty of speculation about what the next Kindle Fire will look like, most of the rumors surrounding the tablet have expected the device to launch in the fall, closer to a year after the launch of the original (which released on November 15, 2011).
Now, CNet is citing “a credible source” who claims that Amazon will be holding a launch event for the Kindle Fire 2 on July 31. This actually matches up with reports from DigiTimes (which is, after all, occasionally right) claiming that the Kindle Fire 2 would be coming early in the third quarter. Of course, DigiTimes also claimed that Amazon would include a much higher-resolution display and drop the Kindle Fire’s price by $50. We’ll have to wait and see on those.
Apart from the release date, little else is known about the Kindle Fire 2. It will presumably stay the same size as its predecessor, and keep a similar, if not identical, price point (DigiTimes notwithstanding). While the new tablet is unlikely to present any more of a threat to the iPad than its predecessor, you can bet it will make a major splash in the non-iPad tablet market.