By: Clint Boulton, eWeek
Now that Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet is nearly a week out the door, the high-tech media can drool over the next hot gadget rumor: the Kindle Phone. Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney told clients in a research note that hardware checks in Taipei indicate the e-commerce giant will launch a smartphone in the fourth quarter of 2012. The phone may only cost between $150 and $170 to manufacture, with the company likely to sell it for something close to that price, Mahaney wrote. That makes sense, considering that the Kindle Fire sells for $199 and components analysts from IHS peg that tablet’s manufacturing cost at $201.70. No word yet on what operating system Amazon would use for its phone, though smart money suggests Google’s Android platform because it’s free and the company has a great comfort level with it after using it for the Fire and building an entire application store around it.
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