Amazon Fire Phone Features Overview
Amazon.com continues its march into all areas of online retail and consumer hardware offerings with their Amazon Fire phone device. This will initially be launched on the AT&T US cellular phone network with other networks surely to follow in their stead later.
Like the Fire tablets and recently Fire TV, this new device fills the void in Amazon's hardware product range as it steps into the heated smartphone market.
Design & Specification
The main design is pretty similar to other handsets out there. The display is 4.7-inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen,31 ppi, 720 x 1280 pixels resolution. The phone is only 8.9mm thick, but the back is slimmer and so it's quite easy to grasp securely. Plastic sides that wrap around the edge and a layer of tough Gorilla Glass on the front and back providing protection from knocks and bumps.
The main thing that stands out with the Fire phone is the five front-facing cameras. Yes, you read correctly, 5 cameras. These are used in new features from Amazon which will be mentioned shortly.
Internal storage is 32GB which seems ample.
Dynamic Perspective
Four of the cameras on the front are used to watch the head of the user. As the position of the head changes, so does the display on the phone. For instance, with a scenery picture as the wallpaper on the lock screen, this will change perspective depending on how your head moves around relative to the phone. Big Brother is indeed watching you.
This can also be used to interesting effect with gaming. Games like downhill skiing can mimic the movement of a player's head relative to the position of the handset. This is somewhat similar to body movements with the Wii gaming device.
Firefly
This is a little like a QR code app, but it's actually capable of reading bar codes and other product-related matter. This can save time trying to quickly look-up an item online. The flip-side of that is that it will prompt more users to visit Amazon to purchase said item that they scanned. So it could be a shopper's delight or nightmare depending on how well they handle temptation.
Gesture Navigation
Motion gestures like a fast swivel of the phone will bring up a settings menu or a quick flip of the phone to the right will show a list of Amazon features and service offerings. A slight tilt to one side of the other will bring up some basic information about the phone like battery life and cellular signal strength.
Gesture navigation is becoming much more of a feature as manufacturers and software developers look for better ways to get the information in front of you when you want it with the minimum of human input to achieve it.
Fire OS 3.5 and App Store
The OS that is running Fire phone is a fork of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean but with changes too numerous to mention. Google Play is not available on the Fire phone, which is no surprise really as Amazon want you to use their Android store instead.
Overall
The Amazon Fire phone is an interesting option for tech buyers who do a lot of shopping with the retailer and do not mind the lock-in to their store, prompts to open Amazon services, etc. The additional features, some of which were mentioned above, are unique to their platform. Whether this is enough to sell their flagship smartphone to many buyers remains to be seen. A very capable first effort though.
The phone is available to pre-order at http://www.amazon.com/Fire_Phone_13MP-Camera_32GB/dp/B00EOE0WKQ.
Also See:
Amazon's Upcoming 3D Smartphone Could Change the Way Items are Viewed and Sold Online
