Amazon.com put a halt to months of speculations as it unveiled the much awaited range of Kindle Fire Tablets at an event in Santa Monica.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled Kindle Fire tablets ranging from $159 to $599. Kindle Fire HD is an updated version of Kindle Fire Android Tablet and Kindle Paperwhite is the upgraded version for its Kindle e-book reader.

The Kindle Fire HD will be available in two screen sizes – 7-inch and 8.9-inch – and both feature IPS displays with a resolution of 1280×800 pixels and 1920×1200 pixels respectively. The 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD will run on a TI OMAP 4470 processor while the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD runs on a TI OMAP 4460 processor. The dual-core processor is clocked at 1.2GHz for the 7-inch version and 1.5GHz for the 8.9-inch variant. There's also an HD front-facing camera, HDMI out, and Bluetooth.

There will also be custom apps from Facebook and Skype, which will take advantage of that front-facing camera.

Kindle Paperwhite includes a frontlit, higher-resolution screen. Users can also change the font and style. It comes in at 9.1mm thick and 7.5 ounces; "thinner than a magazine; lighter than a paperback," Amazon Chief Jeff Bezos said.

Bezos said the new device includes 62 % more pixels than previous Kindles, or 212 pixels per inch. The Kindle Paperwhite will start shipping on September 14 and will be available for $119 for Wi-Fi only version and $169 for 3G and Wi-Fi variant.

Amazon also launched 4G LTE-enabled, 8.9-inch, 32GB tablet for $599, which Amazon compared directly with the equivalent iPad.

The Kindle Fire tablets now have MicrosoftExchange integration. A new email client offers support for Google's Gmail, Microsoft's Exchange and Hotmail. A new feature called FreeTime sets time limits for different types of content activity. For example, the new feature can set the amount of time that kids can play games during a day.

With the addition of the 4G tablet, Amazon is clearly taking a stand in the tablet market against Apple and is ready to climb over the pile of Android tablets that have so far failed to produce a real challenger to the iPad.