Amazon has announced that the Kindle Fire tablet is now ‘sold out’, adding that it has ‘an exciting roadmap ahead’.

Given the bragging that’s going on in the announcement, we’ll give you one guess what the company has up its sleeve for its September 6 event.

The company claims that the first Kindle Fire managed to ‘capture’ 22 per cent of US tablet sales in the nine months since its launch, adding that it was “the most successful product launch in the history of Amazon.com”.

So it’s clear that Amazon isn’t retiring from the tablet game, as further evidenced by CEO Jeff Bezos’ comment that “we have an exciting roadmap ahead”.

That leaves only one logical option: Kindle Fire 2.

Kindling

“We’re grateful to the millions of customers who have made Kindle Fire the most successful product launch in the history of Amazon,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO.

“This has been a big year for digital products on Amazon—all of the top 10 sellers on Amazon.com since Kindle Fire launched just less than a year ago are digital products.

“Kindle Fire is sold out, but we have an exciting roadmap ahead—we will continue to offer our customers the best hardware, the best prices, the best customer service, the best cross-platform interoperability, and the best content ecosystem.”

The three latest tablets from Lenovo have been revealed at IFA 2012, with something to suit everyone.

First up we have the Lenovo Ideatab S2110A – no flashy hyperbolic names for Lenovo, just a random assortment of letters and numbers and some nonsense portmanteau.

This one’s meant for entertainment – enter the 10-inch screen, micro-HDMI port for full HD out and the wholly unnecessary 5MP camera with LED flash.

But all play and no work is presumably not something Lenovo endorses given that the Ideatab S2110A also has a detachable keyboard dock which doubles the battery life of the tablet to up to 20 hours.

More more more

Also on Lenovo’s game card are the Ideatab A2107A and A2109A, both at the affordable end of the spectrum (although prices for all the tablets are yet to be revealed).

They both measure 7-inches and the A2109A has a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor to write home about.

The A2107A, meanwhile, is meant for less power-hungry activities like reading, web browsing and email.

All three tablets are running Android 4.0 (ICS) and heading UK-wards, with pricing and availability still under wraps.

Over in the US, the A2109A and S2110A are available in the US now with prices starting at $299 and $399 respectively. The A2107A will be hitting the States ‘later this year’.

Sony has revealed its latest Android tablet at IFA 2012: the Sony Xperia Tablet S.

The new tablet comes with a slim aluminium body, a ‘splash-proof design’ (for the kitchen, see?) and the option of some specially-made docks and other accessories which you can buy separately.

It may look a little familiar, given that we’ve a) seen it in leaks galore over the past few weeks and b) seen it in chunkier form as its predecessor, the Sony Tablet S.

Running this puppy are the quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor and Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich) rather than the more up-to-date Jelly Bean. The chillier snack-set was rumoured in the latest Xperia Tablet leak; Sony hasn’t said whether the device will get the Jelly Bean upgrade or not.

Name game

Available in three storage options (16GB, 32GB and 64GB), the tablet comes with Bluetooth 3.0 and Wi-Fi connectivity, and there’s an 8MP camera on the back with a 1MP HD web snapper on the front too.

Like its similarly-monickered predecessor, the Sony Tablet S, the Xperia Tablet S has a laser-like focus on media apps which should all be in line with the Xperia smartphones now too.

This means that the likes of Walkman, Music Unlimited and Sony’s movies app will now work the same across all its smartphones and tablets.

Keeping all that media action going is a 6000mAh battery which Sony reckons will give you 10 hours of web browsing or 12 hours of video playback from a full charge.

As for an official release date or price for the Xperia Tablet S, we’re still in the dark – but rest assured we’ll be hunting the slate down at IFA 2012 so stay tuned for our hands on Sony Xperia Tablet S review soon.

Tablet shipments are expected to hit high levels for 2012, with Apple’s iPad leading the pack.

That’s according to new projections concocted by ABI Research, which claims that tablet shipments for 2012 will reach anywhere from 102 to 110 million units – helped out by a record-setting second quarter (measured April to June) that saw almost 25 million tablets shipped.

Just to put that into perspective, the record quarter exceeded shipments the quarter prior by an increase of 36 percent.

Year-to-year, tablet shipments for the period measured April to June were up a total of 77 percent.

So, just how much does the iPad play into the growing tablet picture?

Apple ships all of 2010

According to ABI Research, Apple’s iPad took up approximately 69 percent of all shipments for the aforementioned 25-million-unit quarter.

The 17 million iPads shipped represent another noteworthy figure as well – that’s the total number of tablets shipped in 2010 for all vendors worldwide.

In other words, Apple’s tablet shipments alone – for just a single quarter in 2012 — could cover the entirety of the market two years ago.

Other companies ranking high on the list included Samsung, which cruised into second place for market share for the second quarter of 2012.

Amazon Amazon and ASUS took third and fourth respectively.

Samsung grew its shipments approximately 8.1 percent between the first and second quarter or 2012, and ASUS jumped up four percent.

RIM took top honors as the company that suffered the largest decrease in tablet shipments quarter-to-quarter, dropping approximately one percent.

ABI Research expects Google’s recently launched Nexus 7 to contribute positively to the total tablet shipment figure, but the company neglected to project just exactly how many devices – or what percentage of the total market – Google’s going to hit.

The spacious 64GB edition of the BlackBerry Playbook has taken a karate chop to the price tag, now available for as little as £129.

You’ll have to head over to Dixons or PC World to nab the offer, where you can get the 64GB version for less than the 32GB.

It represents a total saving of £430 on the 64GB Playbook’s launch price of £559.

Play time

The 7-inch tablet has enjoyed mixed fortunes since it was unveiled in late 2010, with price cuts coming hard and heavy despite the news that the tablet will be upgraded to BlackBerry 10 when it lands early next year.

We may not have fallen completely in love with the tablet in our BlackBerry PlayBook review, but there’s plenty to like about the slate, including its nippy performance.

And with a price tag that undercuts the Google Nexus 7 and availability that out-does the yet-to-reach-the-UK Kindle Fire, the £129 deal should have a few tablet fans reaching for their wallets.