Amazon stirs up a tablet price war

Amazon.com Inc. AMZN +2.10% kindled a price war in the tablet-computer market, unveiling a new slate of the devices that pack in more features at lower prices than Apple Inc.'s AAPL +0.90% dominant iPad.

At an event in an airplane hangar Thursday, Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos introduced a family of new Kindle Fire tablets. While the devices included technologies that are already available in many other tablets, Amazon's new products stood out for their low prices, especially compared with Apple's popular iPads.

In particular, Mr. Bezos dropped the price of an entry-level Kindle Fire to $159 from $199. Apple's newest iPad starts at $499. He also introduced three versions of high-definition Kindle Fires at between $199 and $599. A $499 model, which includes 4G capability that enables a connection whenever there is a wireless signal and 32 gigabytes of memory is $230 cheaper than Apple's corresponding 4G iPad.