Sprint to Offer $100 Tablet (S, AMZN, GOOG)

Sprint Nextel Inc. (NYSE: S) has decided to take a swipe at Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) and its Kindle Fire table with a deal offering a 7-inch 3G-compatible tablet for $100 with a two-year mobile broadband contract. The tablet, called the Optik, is made by Hong Kong-listed ZTE Corp.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire is priced at $199 and both it and the Optik provide web browsers along with wireless access to the Internet. Other apps for the Optik are available through the Android Market at Google, Inc.

For ZTE, the offer gives the company an entry to the US tablet market. For Sprint, it adds incremental sales to its mobile broadband offerings. Customers can take advantage of the deal beginning February 5th.