Yes, those rumors were true! Amazon has gone ahead and finally unveiled its very first smartphone dubbed the Amazon Fire Phone. The new Fire Phone is another effort from Amazon to make use of its digital ecosystem. So, what features make the Amazon smartphone offering different from the dense and strong competition? Well, Amazon’s ecosystem should surely help along with Fire Phone’s unique 3D head tracking and object scanning abilities. Along with that, here’s everything you need to know about Amazon’s very first smartphone…
Hardware
The Amazon Fire Phone hardware is an interesting one, be it the four front-facing cameras, material used or the dedicated Firefly button.
Design
Amazon Fire Phone’s design seems to be a lot like the iPhone 4 & 4S and Google’s Nexus 4 from the past. Similar to the mentioned devices, Fire Phone features Gorilla Glass on both the front and the back. There’s a rubber like frame sandwiched between the front and back glass.
On the front, the phone is packed with dual front facing speakers with virtual surround sound. Amazon also supplies new tangle free earbuds with the phone, which snap to each other, thanks to the magnets on the inside.
Display
The Amazon Fire Phone features a 4.7-inch HD (1280x720p) IPS display capable of up to 590 nits of brightness. The latter part should help the device in direct sunlight. The 720p resolution of the display might disappoint people, considering QHD/2K display packing devices like the LG G3 are making their way to the market.
Under the Hood
Talking about the specs under the hood, the device is powered by a 2.2 GHz Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor with Adreno 330 GPU and coupled with 2 GB RAM. These specs are great on paper and Amazon claims that the Fire Phone will run very smooth.
The Amazon Fire Phone will be available in 32 and 64 GB options with no slot for expansion. There’s a 2400 mAh battery in tow. The phone is well covered when it comes to connectivity options and as it’s the norm, it does come with 4G LTE connectivity.
Camera
The rear camera is a 13 MP one with f/2.0 aperture, OIS and flash. It has a five element lens and a dedicated hardware camera shutter button. The camera supposedly takes better low light shots than the iPhone 5s and the Galaxy S5.
On the front, there are four cameras, each on one corner combined with infrared LEDs. The front facing camera detects your eye and changes content on the screen according to that.
Software
The Amazon Fire Phone runs on a forked Android build, which means no Google services, similar to the Kindle Fire tablets and the new 3D user interface is called Dynamic Perspective. There’s eye tracking, the four front-facing cameras will detect your eye movements and change the content on the screen accordingly.
The Dynamic interface packs in a lot of gestures and similar to Samsung’s Smart Scroll feature, you can tilt the phone to move around in the UI. It will be interesting to see if Amazon has managed to make it any better. The device also comes with a new feature dubbed “Firefly”, which lets you scan objects via the microphone or the camera on the real world and then shop the object at the Amazon store. For example, you scan a book and it’ll show you if the book is available online. Amazon Fire Phone has a dedicated button for the Firefly.
There’s another exclusive feature for Fire Phone users, that’s Mayday, which is essentially a 24*7 customer care service from Amazon. It will be available on all 365 days on the year and Amazon claims you’ll be able to talk to the support team in 15 second flat, which sounds pretty cool.
Availability
The Amazon Fire Phone will only be available in the US and is exclusive to US carrier AT&T. It is priced at $199 and $299 on contract for the 32 GB and 64 GB variants respectively. You can also get it unlocked for $649.
Amazon Fire Phone Specs:
- 4.7-inch IPS display
- HD (1280x720p) resolution
- 2.2 GHz Quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor
- 2 GB RAM
- 32/64 GB storage
- 13 MP rear camera with f/2.0, OIS, 5-element lens and LED flash
- 4 front facing cameras with infrared LEDs for eye tracking
- Fire OS 3.5 with Firefly, Mayday and more
- 2400 mAh battery
- 4G LTE
Yes, the Amazon Fire Phone is pricey, which wasn’t expected to be. We’ll have to wait and watch if Amazon manages to gain any meaningful traction against the big giants. Till then, tell us how you like Amazon’s Fire Phone in the comments below…
