While we don't see Amazon refresh its product lines every year, unlike many other tech companies, it's high time we saw a follow-up to the Amazon Fire 7 tablet. Luckily, it sounds like the brand's lowest-end slate family might get an update very soon.
This comes from Liliputing, which spotted that the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) website had been updated with a tablet which is almost definitely an upcoming Fire tablet.
We say 'almost definitely' because, despite the fact that the Amazon or Fire branding is missing from the documents, the company which filed it, Abyssal Plain LLC, has previously filed for other slates from the company.
There's no actual evidence this is the Amazon Fire 7, instead of a new HD 8 or HD 10, but those ranges have been updated more recently - no, the Fire 7 is the most likely prospect.
According to one document in the FCC listing, 'Abyssal Plain LLC' gets 180 days of confidentiality from the date of grant, which was January 4. This covers things like the user manual and photos of the device. So it sounds like we could see the device in the first half of the year, but we don't have a more solid release window just yet.
Analysis: it probably won't be alone
When we see the new Amazon Fire 7, it probably won't be alone. We say this because, in the Fire HD 8 and HD 10's newest generations, there have actually been two different slates for each size: a standard and a Plus.
The Plus often offers more RAM than its counterpart as well as wireless charging, which admittedly isn't a huge change, but the price generally doesn't increase by too much.
So we could see an Amazon Fire 7 Plus, though as its lowest-end offering, the company might opt just to stick with one budget tablet for now.
