Most Android-based tablets have been duds compared to Apple's iPad, but Amazon could be well on the path to victory. Cult of Android has published a datasheet supposedly received from an inside source that shows Amazon's preorder sales for the upcoming slate. A mere five days after opening preorders, the company sold over 250,000 tablets.
That breaks down to more than 2,000 devices per hour and if preorders continue at that pace, the company will move some 2.5 million units when the Kindle Fire launches on November 15. By comparison, Motorola only shipped 100,000 Xooms in its first month and a half on the market and Research In Motion took a month to sell 250,000 PlayBooks.
Cult of Android also published the preorder figures for Amazon's Kindle Touch Wi-Fi ($100) and 3G ($150), but neither is close to the Kindle Fire's popularity ($200). The cheaper device accumulated some 20,000 preorders while 12,000 people are in line for the pricier WWAN model. These figures are at least two or three days old by now, if they're even true.
Early speculation by Piper Jaffray's Gene Muster suggested that Amazon would lose about $50 per Kindle Fire, which it would later recoup through software and service sales. However, according updated estimates by UBM TechInsights, each tablet will cost approximately $150 to produce, leaving $50 per unit to cover fees for R&D, marketing, support etc.
The Kindle Fire packs a 7-inch 1024x600 IPS display, 8GB of internal storage, a USB 2.0 port and a battery life of up to eight hours. It's built on an Android-based operating system that has a customized user interface along with Amazon's application store and Silk browser. If you haven't caught the drift, Amazon is ready and willing to accept your preorder.