It was an Apple-style event that Amazon held today, with CEO Jeff Bezos announcing the arrival of four new devices, including the rumored Amazon Fire tablet and drastic reductions in price, as well as major refreshes for the company’s line of Kindle eReaders.

Bezos unveiled the Kindle Touch ($99), an updated non-touch Kindle ($79), a new Kindle 3G ($149) and the star of the show, the Amazon Fire ($199), which does not have a cellular connection.

If it was an Apple-style event, Amazon, which said it would never compete directly with Apple, just did so with the launch of the $199 Amazon Fire tablet and all of its many mature content services in accompaniment. The Fire ships Nov. 15, but Bezos recommends consumers get their pre-orders in today.

While the new low-cost Kindle entrants are sure to shake up the eReader market, the Kindle Fire could put a major dent in Apple’s iPad sales. The Fire is a 7-inch dual-core Wi-Fi tablet (no camera or 3G) that looks remarkably like the QNX-based BlackBerry Playbook. Bezos demoed the tablet running Android Apps from the Amazon App Store for Android.

According to the specs, the Fire will come with 8 GB internal storage, or enough for 80 apps, plus either 10 movies or 800 songs or 6,000 books.

The Fire also features Amazon Silk, a new browser that can render pages either locally on the device or on Amazon’s cloud, which Bezos says will lead to faster performance.

Perhaps most importantly, however, the Kindle Fire features deep integration with all of Amazon’s content services (apps, movies, music, cloud storage, eBookes, magazines, billing system).

“The question is: Why is Kindle working? Why is this working? I believe it’s because Kindle is an end-to-end service,” Bezos said, according to a live blog of today’s event posted on Engadget.com. “And I believe it is because we have been inventing and improving that service at a rapid pace for the last four years.”

Those past four years have put into place for Amazon all of the things that recently released Android tablets have been missing, namely a seamless end-to-end experience the likes of which until now has only been seen from Apple.

Samsung upped the ante in its battle against the iPad yesterday, unveiling two new tablet devices at the IFA electronics conference in Berlin. Samsung took the wraps off the Galaxy Tab 7.7 and the Galaxy Note, a new stylus-based tablet.

The Samsung Note, which features a 1.4 GHz dual core processor, both HSPA+ and LTE connectivity and a 5.3-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen, represents a new category of product from Samsung. The company is billing it as a cross between a smartphone and a tablet, in much the way Dell pitched its Dell Streak 5-inch slate.

The Note’s digital “S Pen” can be used for accurate sketching and artwork and, of course, taking notes. The Note features an application called S Memo, which is designed to record all forms of user-created content. Pictures, voice recordings, typed text, handwritten notes or drawings can all be captured and converted to a “memo,” to be edited, annotated and shared as desired.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 seems to aim towards providing yet another size option for those finicky tablet users out there. The Galaxy Tab 7.7 comes running Android Honeycomb 3.2 and features a 7.7-inch WXGA Super AMOLED touchscreen, 1.4GHz dual core processor, HSPA+ 21 Mbps connectivity, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Samsung has thrown its latest TouchWiz UX over Honeycomb on the Tab 7.7. The latest iteration of Samsung’s UI includes a Live Panel menu for customizing the home screen of the device with digital pictures, favorite Web sites and social network feeds. TouchWiz UX also includes a “Mini Apps” tray of commonly used features such as task manager, calendar and music player which can be launched while other major applications are already in use.

Google has launched in-app billing for Android apps, company executive Eric Chu announced in a blog post yesterday.

In-app billing will let Android users make purchases of digital goods like media files or upgrades for mobile games without exiting the app. The in-app billing service is handled by Google’s Android Market.

Several Android apps are already offering the service, including Tap Tap Revenge by Disney Mobile; Comics by ComiXology; Gun Bros, Deer Hunter Challenge HD and World Series of Poker Hold’em Legend by Glu Mobile; and Dungeon Defenders: FW Deluxe by Trendy Entertainment.

Niccolo de Masi, CEO of Glu Mobile, called the start of in-app purchases on Android Market a “very significant step forward.”

“The Android gaming market continues to demonstrate impressive growth and we are optimistic that over the medium term in-app payments on Android will generate revenue streams analogous to those on iOS,” de Masi said, referring to Apple’s rival operating system for the iPhone and iPad.

Apple launched in-app payments in 2009. Four of the 10 highest-grossing apps in the App Store – Tap Zoo, Smurfs’ Village, Zombie Farm and Texas Poker – are free but allow in-app purchases. The launch of in-app payments on Android could help developers make more money off apps for the competing operating system.

Apple’s in-app payments generated concern after children using their parent’s iPhones racked up huge bills buying digital goods through games like Smurfs’ Village. Apple has since changed how purchases within iOS games are authorized.