Best Buy plans to take on Amazon's Kindle Fire HD and Google's Nexus 7 this holiday season with its own Android tablet marketed under the company's in-house Insignia brand for low-cost products. According to the official announcement on Facebook, the tablet will go by the name Insignia Flex, and will feature a 9.7-inch screen, a dual-core 1GHz processor, Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" and 10 hours of battery life.
The retailer hasn't indicated if an update to Jelly Bean is coming anytime soon and kept a few other key details under wraps, like the amount of RAM, storage capability, screen resolution, and whether 3G/4G connectivity options will be available. Pricing also remains a mystery, although a report from Reuters today citing an unnamed source claims the device will be priced somewhere between $239 and $259.
If accurate, Best Buy's tablet would be able to undercut the similarly sized iPad 2 ($399) as well as the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD, while being only slightly pricier than the 7-inch Kinde Fire HD and Google Nexus 7.
Once all is said and done, spec-by-spec the Insignia Flex might not even compare favorably with any of the aforementioned tablets, but the extra real state as well as a prime placement on Best Buy's store shelves might give it a fighting chance in the busy holiday shopping season. The device will hit stores on November 11.