After weeks of speculation, Amazon has finally unveiled its new Kindle Fire, a 7-inch tablet that will help sell its e-books and streaming movies and, according to experts, be the toughest rival yet to Apple’s iPad and iPad2 tablets. The main reason: its US$199 price tag. …

Apple’s iPad will continue to account for the lion’s share of the tablet market this year, with rival Android devices slowly closing in from behind.

According to latest estimates by Gartner, a technology research firm, the iPad is expected to end the year with 73.4 percent of the global tablet market, down from 83 percent in 2010.

Android’s slice of the pie will increase from 14.3 percent in 2010 to 17.3 percent this year, thanks to the success of low-end tablets in Asia and expectations around the launch of Amazon’s Android tablet. …

As we roll into 2011, and a whole slew of new tablets are set to be launched at CES next week, I’m worrying a little for folks who are selling Huawei’s Ideos S7 tablet.

It’s running the older Android 2.1, said one of my techie pals, when I showed them the tablet over Christmas. Another said the screen looked washed out. I chimed in too, calling out Huawei’s decision to release a tablet with a resistive screen instead of a capacitive version that offers better touch sensitivity.

Is there any hope that such a tablet aimed at the low-end will succeed in Singapore? I think the main reason would be its price. It’s going for S$0 to S$198 at M1, if you sign up for a subscription plan with the telco. The retail price for the Ideos S7? A halfway-house S$548.

(UPDATE: Huawei has since revised the price to S$499).

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Long before Apple and Samsung trotted out their tablets, the lesser-known Archos had been making what were known as portable multimedia players (PMPs), which worked sort of like tricked-up MP3 players with video playback.

Now, after being not particularly successful with early Android tablets, the French company is back with a couple of tablets you really have to check out before buying an iPad or Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Tab.

While buying some parts for a PC over the weekend, I found the Archos 70 and 101 tablets selling at Memory World and its other outlet Storage Studio at Sim Lim Square, and I joined a small crowd swiping our fingers over the screens of these two wonderfully portable machines.

Boy, was I pleasantly surprised after getting a quick hands-on with the gizmos.

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If you can’t wait to lay your hands on an Apple iPad, head down to Lucky Plaza where the device was spotted at several electronics stores in the basement level. Prices are hovering around S$990.

CNET Asia’s Crave blog reported that the iPad is going for S$1,299 at one large 24-hour megamall, so Lucky Plaza might just be offering the best iPad prices in town for now before the device officially ships to Singapore. …