If Amazon Can't Make a Good Tablet, Can it Make a Good Smartphone?

The word on the street is that the online retailer is getting ready to launch a smartphone of its own.

cites a comment from a report by Citi analysts Mark Mahaney and Kevin Chang, who apparently said that an “Amazon smartphone may be coming next year.” While any analyst could have said this on any given day of the week (it is a no-brainer, eh?), Citi does have some evidence to back up its claims, namely supply-chain checks with hardware manufacturers in China. Citi is under the impression that the new smartphone will be a joint development venture between Amazon

and Foxconn, that infamous Chinese company that manufactures virtually every beloved electronic device in the world. From Apple

iPads to Nintendo (

) handhelds, Foxconn does it all. But Foxconn won't be manufacturing the Amazon smartphone, it seems. Foxconn will help develop it, while TMS – which handles the Kindle line of devices – will manufacture the Kindle Fone (or whatever Amazon calls it). Should we be excited? I'm not sure. The early Kindle Fire reviews have been

, making me wonder if Amazon is ready to jump headfirst into device manufacturing. Granted, it took a while before the Kindle was perfected. The same could be said for the iPod, Apple's first significant venture into portable electronics. But now that the big, bad, mighty Apple is here, how long will consumers hang around Amazon before going back to the devices they already know and love?