No doubt you are aware that Google has unveiled the Google Nexus 7 tablet, which is expected to do battle with the Amazon Kindle Fire, but Amazon also has the next generation Kindle Fire slate on its way, but as yet it isn’t too clear just when Amazon will release the Amazon Kindle Fire 2.

When you put the original Amazon Kindle Fire up against what the Google Nexus 7 tablet has to offer, the Kindle Fire does look somewhat outdated, as the Nexus 7 does offer Android Jelly Bean along with a front facing camera and a quad core processor.

But obviously Amazon isn’t simply going to sit back and wait for Google to shift a vast quantity of the Nexus 7 before they manage to get their Kindle Fire 2 out to the tablet space, and as such according to the guys over at Phone Arena by way of China Times, the word is Amazon will begin shipping the Amazon Kindle Fire 2 as of the 7th of August.

The Chinese paper claims that Amazon has already ordered two million of the Amazon Kindle Fire 2 7-inch slates from Quanta that are said to be scheduled for an early August delivery.

As for the rumoured specifications of the new Amazon tablet, it is said the Amazon Kindle Fire 2 will sport a metal frame whilst the rest of the chassis will be plastic, with both LG and TPK supplying the display touch panels.

Thus is would appear that this autumn we’ll have the Nexus 7 going up against the Amazon Kindle Fire 2, and with the rumoured Apple iPad Mini expected to enter the fray sometime in the fall, it could turn out to be quite a battle for supremacy in the smaller tablet space.