Several have tried to unseat Apple as King of the Tablets but they've all fallen by the wayside. Samsung, Motorola, Acer and Research in Motion have all fielded their tablets only to be beaten by the Apple giant. Hewlett Packard tried with the TouchPad this summer and is now scrambling to recuperate its losses.

Now another challenger is taking up the gauntlet and analysts say that this time it could actually be a real fight. Amazon is expected to unveil its tablet computer this week in hopes of upsetting the Apple tablet dominance.

Amazon is in a good place to challenge the tablet giant. The company that introduced the e-reader to the world has the resources and the revenue to campaign against the iPad. The Amazon tablet will likely sell for $250 which is cheaper than the iPad and could attract more users who don't have the resources for the high-end Apple device. The low price is also bait for other Amazon content and services.

"It's a marketing tool to build a relationship with customers and sell them cloud (computing) services," said James McQuivey, an analyst with Forrester Research.

Another thing Amazon has going for its entry in the tablet market is its price. Amazon's low price could overcome Apple's superior processing power.

"The No. 1 thing consumers do on tablets is e-mail," said Sarah Rotman Epps, a Forrester analyst. "The No. 2 thing is look up stuff on the Web. Then playing games and watching video. Amazon will offer all the tablet that many consumers need."

Users who only want a tablet for entertainment purposes will gravitate more towards the cheaper Amazon tablet. Since two-thirds of the market is entertainment users, Apple will finally have a competitor that will offer a serious challenge.

"Lock-in is the holy grail of a tech company, but it's difficult to keep up," said Bill Rosenblatt of Giant Steps Media Technology Strategies. "Amazon has already achieved dominance with e-books, but finding a niche with its tablet to boost all of its content services is going to be a challenge."

While toppling Apple still seems like an insurmountable task, Amazon's new tablet could be the harbinger of future tablets that could do the job.