A second, better Amazon Kindle tablet could land as early as the first quarter of next year.

That's according to to gadget site gdgt - the chaps behind reports that the Amazon Kindle Fire, the tablet that is expected to be unveiled in a matter of hours, would be more of a "stopgap" and, as a result, a "pretty poor" device.

Its report states that the Fire, which could be a PlayBook lookalike thanks to the involvement of ODM Quanta, has been delayed - throwing Amazon's release schedule into disarray; apparently the plan was never to launch two tablets in such a short time frame.

The second tablet is described as "the device Amazon really believes in".

The claims tie in with what was being reported back in May, just after Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, confirmed that the online retail giant was looking to get in on the tablet market.

Reports at the time circulated suggesting that Amazon had a quad-core tablet monster lined up, codenamed the Amazon Hollywood, packing an Nvidia Tegra 3 chip. This was to sit alongside a 7-inch Tegra 2 packing device, codenamed the Amazon Coyote.

There's nothing official and this is merely speculation at this point. But it wouldn't surprise us one bit to see Amazon take a bite at the tablet market initially with the Coyote, followed up by a blockbuster première in the way of the Hollywood next year.

See also - Amazon Kindle Fire coming Wednesday with Cloud Drive on board?