Early predictions were that the Internet's largest retailer would refresh its Kindle Fire tablet by the . With July just about finished, that seems to have been wishful thinking. Now it appears that refresh will occur closer to the one-year of the tablet in September.

Unlike last year when the Fire hit the tablet scene, however, the noise level in the market will be a lot louder. Inside the time window when the Kindle refresh will probably occur, Microsoft-branded Surface tablets will start appearing on the shelves and there's a real possibility that Apple will introduce a of its market-leading iPad tablet. That will make it a lot harder than it was last year for Amazon to grab consumer mind share for its Kindle line.

Amazon has been as tight-lipped about a refresh of Fire as Apple is about its new products, but there's a consensus among forecasters that the company is ready to compete directly with the iPad by introducing a .

According to , the new larger Fire will have a quad core processor, front-facing camera, micro USB port, and maybe even an HDMI-out port.

A display upgrade is a must. At 1024 by 600 pixels, the current Fire is antiquated compared to the new Nexus 7 with its 1280 by 800 screen. Amazon will need to at least meet the Nexus 7 specs or better them, perhaps by jacking up the ante to 1920 by 1200, which is no 2048-by-1536 Apple Retina display but still respectable.