AT&T to start selling Amazon Kindle on March 6

AT&T will sell the 6-inch, 3G version of the Amazon Kindle in company-owned stores starting Sunday, it announced today.

The carrier will be selling the e-reader for $189, the same price it's available for on Amazon.com and in other retail outlets. Customers who opt to buy the Kindle at AT&T stores won't find any special arrangements with the carrier, so consider this just another place where Kindle seekers can pick up the e-reader.

AT&T's decision to start selling the Kindle on its store shelves makes for a rather interesting dynamic in its stores. Soon, the Kindle will be sitting next to the iBooks-equipped iPad in AT&T stores, enabling those looking for an e-reader to try out both devices before they make their choice.

Amazon's Kindle 3G connects to the Web via Wi-Fi or over AT&T's 3G network for free. It allows users to download books, periodicals, and other content wirelessly, and is capable of storing up to 3,500 books. According to AT&T, the Amazon Kindle Store now has over 810,000 books for customers to choose from.

Amazon revealed in December that its third-generation Kindle is the bestselling product of all time on its Web site, surpassing "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7)." On Christmas Day, "more people turned on new Kindles for the first time, downloaded more Kindle Buy Once, Read Everywhere apps, and purchased more Kindle books than on any other day in history," Amazon said at the time. The company did not release sales figures however.

The Kindle was also the top-selling device on Amazon between November 14 and December 19, besting the 8GB iPod Touch, according to the company.

AT&T joins Target and Best Buy in the growing number of retailers that sell the Kindle on store shelves.

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White Sony Ericsson Xperia Play and HTC Desire S headed to O2 UK

O2 has announced that it would exclusively offer the white version of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play in the UK.

The carrier plans to sell the new PlayStation-certified smartphone starting April, at about the same time when it will also launch the Xperia Arc.

Another new Android 2.3 Gingerbread smartphone that’s coming soon to O2 UK is the HTC Desire S (which was announced by HTC at MWC 2011, just like Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play).

O2 doesn’t say how much its upcoming Android smartphones will cost. Anyway, I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to get any of them for free if you’re willing to sign a new contract agreement, and opt for an expensive data plan.

 

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Sony Ericsson 4G tablet prototype pictured

Sony Ericsson is rumoured to be working on a 4G, Android-running tablet, a prototype of which has been snapped by a Dutch blog.

Hiding in plain sight, the tablet was spotted on the TDIA stand over at Mobile World Congress.

The inclusion front-facing camera comes as no surprise – apparently it's a 3MP snapper – and that screen is estimated to be 6 or 7-inches.

Chubby Android

The TDIA representatives on the stand confirmed to NieuweMobiel.nl that it will run Android on release, although they did not specify which iteration of the OS.

There are three buttons on the prototype device – home, menu and back – which are pretty standard for Android phones but most tablets these days do away with as many buttons as possible.

Of course, there's no guarantee that all three buttons will make it to the final device, nor, we hope, will the enormous bezel or overall thickness of the tablet.
The unnamed Sony Ericsson tablet is branded TD-LTE; a 4G China Mobile network. Obviously, a 4G tablet isn't much good to us Brits at present, but there's a good chance we'll see a WiFi or 3G model launch as well if the tablet ever hits the market.

When we spoke to Nathan Vautier, MD of Sony Ericsson UK, last week, he denied that Sony Ericsson was working on a tablet at all; but these branded prototypes and comments from CTO Jan Uddenfelt suggest otherwise.

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