Every dollar counts if you’re the typical college kid nowadays. Amazon knows this, which is why the e-commerce giant is making its new Kindle Fire HD 8.9 a bit cheaper for students this month.

During January, Amazon will cut the price of the tablet by $50, making it as cheap as $249 for the ad-supported 16GB model. The 4G LTE model will run as low as $449 with the discount.

The deal is not particularly surprising; it shows just how much Amazon has integrated its various devices, services, and media content. Students who purchase the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 aren’t just buying a tablet — they’re buying into the Amazon media content and Prime ecosystem as well. Make no mistake: Amazon’s main mission is to lock its customers in and never let them go.

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 deal does come with two limitations. For one, it requires that buyers enroll  in Amazon’s Student program, which requires a .edu email address. A bigger hindrance, perhaps, is that buyers will also need a subscription to Amazon Prime, which costs $49 a year for students. Fortunately, Amazon also offers free six-month subscriptions to Prime, which should make the discount that much more enticing.

Via: SlashGear

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

For customers interested in buying the Kindle Fire HD 8.9, Amazon has some good news and some bad news. The good news is, the company is shipping the device a week early. The bad news is that it’s already back-ordered.

“Due to popular demand, orders placed today are expected to ship the week of December 3rd,” the device’s Amazon page says.

The Kindle Paperwhite tells a similar tale: Consumers who order the Amazon e-Reader won’t get their devices until after December 21. Both devices join Google’s Nexus 4, which sold out shortly after going on sale this week. Clearly, we’re seeing a trend here.

Unlike Google, however, Amazon is still taking orders on its devices, even though they won’t ship for a few weeks. So while Google isn’t sure when it’ll have more devices in stock, Amazon seems to have its own situation all figured out.

In any case, when the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 does arrive, it will find itself in the middle of a very busy 7-inch tablet market populated by the Nexus 7 and, more recently, iPad mini. And probably the last thing Amazon wants is for its Kindle Fire HD backlog to push potential customers in the direction of the competition.