It's here! Meet Amazon Fire, the etailer's very first smartphone. Anyone out there nail its name?
The
Amazon phone is about what we expected on the spec front, but it's
loaded with two features that Amazon claims help users "see and interact
with the world through a whole new lens."
Those
features are Dynamic Perspective and Firefly, which we breakdown further
below, plus plenty of details on everything else the Amazon phone has
to offer.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from Amazon's
phone event, besides the eye-catching 3D (which doesn't necessarily mean
customer-catching), is the phone's heavy ties to buying. Amazon wants
you to purchase things, and now it's come up with a way for you to do so
from your pocket.
What are your thoughts on Fire? Is it everything you were hoping for and more? Or a let-down that can't hold a candle to the
iPhone 5S,
Galaxy S5
or other flagship devices? Is Amazon simply trying to sell you more
stuff, or looking like it legitimately wants to succeed in the
smartphone space?
Amazon Fire Phone specs
The device features a
4.7-inch screen, a size ideal for one-handed use, said CEO Jeff Bezos.
It ranks with 590 nits of brightness and other goodies like an ambient
light sensor and Dynamic Image Contrast to make your screen images sing
in various viewing situations. The resolution sits at 1280 x 720 with
315ppi.
Gorilla Glass 3 is slathered on the front and
back, the buttons are made of aluminum and stainless steel details and a
rubberized polyurethane grip make for a chic profile.
On
the inside, the Fire Phone features a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800
2.2GHz processor, Adreno 330 graphics and 2GB of RAM. As expected, the
Fire runs a forked version of Android, Fire OS 3.5.0.
As for cameras, we know it's fixed with a 13MP snapper on
the rear, complete with OIS and a powerful f/2.0 lens. There's even a
dedicated camera hardware key - press once to turn it on, twice to take a
shot. Amazon is throwing in free unlimited photo storage on Amazon
Cloud Drive to sweeten the deal.
The front camera - the normal one - is a 2.1MP-er. Both it and the rear camera can capture video in 1080p.
Dolby
Digital Plus surround sound speakers crank out the Fire Phone's audio.
The Fire phone features global LTE and connectivity on nine LTE bands,
four GSM bands and five UMTS. It features 802.11ac support, Wi-Fi
channel bonding, Bluetooth and NFC. Note this is regular Bluetooth and
not the LE kind that makes for wearable connections.
We suspect the device is going to need
a lot
of juice to run its 3D features, and Amazon only managed to put a
2,400mAh battery in to fuel the Fire. The company said in release notes
that the Fire has 285 hours of standby time, up to 22 hours of talk
time, up to 65 hours of audio playback and up to 11 hours of video
playback. But running Dynamic Perspective and extensive testing is
needed to see if these numbers are attainable.
Finally, a nanoSIM is preinstalled and the phone has space for a microUSB 2.0 and 3.5mm headphone ports.
Amazon Fire Phone 3D features
The
Amazon phone screen has an interface called Dynamic Perspective to
adjust the a 3D image on the screen to match users' head position.
Lockscreens and wallpapers have a 3D effect, though that's not all.
Bezos
demonstrated on stage how the device could render a building on a map
in 3D. The building - the Empire State, to be exact - looked like it was
coming out of the Amazon phone's screen, and moved as the user moved.
Neatly,
in maps, you can tilt the phone to see what's "tucked" information that
lives on another layer, like Yelp ratings and reviews, and see under
and around edges.
The fun doesn't stop there. Fire Phone
also lets you one-handed tilt through a line-up of items you may be
shopping for, like women's dresses, in the Amazon Shopping app. You can
also auto-scroll through an article, a web browser or ebooks, and
tilting in Amazon Music reveals song lyrics.
And Dynamic
Perspective seems acutely tuned to games, making the images you see on
screen pop out and forcing you to manoeuvre around them just by moving
your head.
Dynamic Perspective is good at recognizing what's a human
head and what's not, and there will even be an SDK for the feature so
app developers can 3D-ify their games and offerings.
Bezos
explained onstage in Seattle that in the early days of the Fire Phone,
Amazon went so far as to make its own headset to emulate 3D effects.
That's not really practical for real-life, Amazon concluded, which is
perhaps a little jibe at
Google Glass.
To
solve the 3D issue, Amazon did indeed stick four front-facing cameras
on each corner of its phone. No matter what angle it's being held at,
two cameras will always be facing the user, Bezos claimed. They are of
the infrared variety - ultra-low power, Amazon swears - so they work in
darkness.
The Dynamic Perspective system also relies on four infrared LEDs on the front to compliment the cameras.
More Amazon Fire phone features
The
Amazon phone is full of little touches, like swipes, to make it easier
to use. Bezos and Co. seem very keen to make the Fire Phone as
user-friendly as possible, probably hoping to keep their customer
satisfaction rankings cozy in their No. 1 slots.
Following
in line with the Kindle tablets, the phone features a dedicated Mayday
button to connect to customer support. It will work over Wi-Fi, 3G and
4G, and is free.
Because video is so tied to the Amazon
experience, the company has included a number of video features with its
first handset. IMDB's X-Ray is headed to the Fire Phone, and Second
Screen lets uses Miracast video from their Fire phone to their
Fire TV. ASAP, another Fire TV feature, is also making it to its phone-y cousin.
The Kindle Store, Audible, Kindle Newstand and the recently purchased Comixology are accessible on the phone.
Taking
advantage of Amazon's digital content library, the Fire provides
"instant access" to over 33 million songs, apps, games, movies, TV
shows, books, audiobooks and magazines. Prime members will get unlimited
streaming access to movies and TV episodes at no extra chard. The same
sort of deal applies to Kindle Owners' Lending Library and
Prime Music members.
