Refurb Kindle drops to $99, new model coming?

Amazon has quietly dropped the price for its refurbished Kindles, with the Wi-Fi-only, ad-free Kindle now at $99 while the 3G ad-free version is down to $129.99.

Big deal, you say. The Wi-Fi-only Kindle with Special Offers is $114. But as the blog Beyond Black Friday points out, the last time Amazon dropped the price on the refurbished versions of its e-readers the Kindle 3 (the current model) arrived soon afterward in late August. To put it more bluntly, Amazon appears to be clearing inventory in advance of a launch.

Related links
• Amazon's Nook killer shipping soon
• What the next Kindle will look like

In case you're wondering, the previous price of the refurbished Wi-Fi-only Kindle was $129.99 and the 3G version was $179.99. So you're looking at pretty serious price drops.

I've been predicting for a while that the next Kindle would have a touch screen like the new Nook. However, there are some indications that Amazon could introduce two new Kindles--one a higher-end touch-screen model that's priced similarly to the Nook Touch and an entry-level model that costs less than $100. And, of course, many are speculating that Amazon will soon release a smaller Android-based tablet to compete with the Nook Color.