Last week, Amazon launched its much anticipated smartphone to the press and public. There was much speculation on what the name of it would be but the company decided to drop the Kindle name from the device and instead call it the Fire Phone. This is probably because they wanted to distance it a bit from being a ereader device and more on a multipurpose phone. Of course Amazon has a hard fight for sales with entrenched companies such as Apple and Samsung with their huge market shares and the smaller companies all trying to get a piece of the market. Sadly, I don’t think they did enough to compel many consumers from switching away from their existing phones to their new product.
The Good
From the title you probably think that there isn’t much good to say about Amazon’s smartphone but it does have a few merits. The problem is that they are not enough to offset the number of drawbacks that exist. So, what do prospective buyer’s have to look forward to.
Amazon Prime – At a price of $99, the Amazon Prime service is one of the best values out there. It gets you free 2-day shipping on many products from their online store, free TV and movie streaming and just recently streaming music. With the purchase of the Fire Phone, Amazon provides buyer’s with one year of Prime service. The best part is that if you already have Prime membership, you get an extra year added onto your existing service. Sadly, this looks to be an limited time offer with the launch of the phone with no details on how long it will be offered.
Mayday Support – First introduced when the Kindle Fire HDX tablets were launched, Mayday is a live video chat technical support service. Users that are having problems or just have questions on how to do something with their Fire Phone device can call up to have a video chat (you see them, they can’t see you) to get assistance. This is a completely free service. The one downside is that this only works if your device and networking work.
Firefly – Firefly was originally an extension to the X-ray feature that Amazon introduced for getting additional details via IMDB for movies and TVs. This feature has been greatly expanded with the Fire Phone. The main purpose for it is to identify and get information on just about anything. See a web address on a business card or flyer? Just scan it and the Fire Phone can launch the website. Need to know a song? The phone will listen to it and then identify it. Want to know how much a product might cost online? Simply scan the barcode or take a picture and let your phone find it. Sure, there are apps that do similar things for Android and iOS devices but this is built into the Fire OS 3.5.
Dynamic Perspective – You probably saw that teaser video of people looking down at something and being shocked at what the device would do. Most likely this was the Dynamic Perspective feature. In essence, the device features the standard accelerometers plus has multiple cameras on the face. It uses these to sense the angle of the phone to the viewer. By tilting the phone a specific way, users can pull up additional information and menus to quickly get more out of their phone. It is innovative in a way as it can speed up how to use the device. It will likely take users some time to get used to the actions as many people like to track their phones orientation with their head.
Brightness – Sometimes using a smartphone outdoors can be near impossible with all of the glare. Amazon’s Fire Phone can produce an amazing 590cd/m2 brightness levels. This is probably the brightest screen there is on the market and this means that you can use it in just about any situation. Just be careful though because that level of brightness can also just about blind a person in dark situations.
The Bad
Cost – Priced at $650 for a 32GB version of the phone without a contract, this is the same cost as the 16GB version of the iPhone 5S. The problem is you can get a quite capable custom built Moto X starting at $399. Amazon decided to go the premium route with the Fire Phone and this is probably going to hurt them at least for initial sales. Both the Samsung Galaxy 5S and iPhone 5S have a lot going for them and Amazon needed to price it much less if they really wanted to capture sales. My guess is that the inclusion of Amazon Prime is the likely culprit in terms of the higher cost. I expect prices will also drop some over time.
AT&T Exclusive – Of course one can get an Amazon Fire Phone for just $199 if you are willing to sign up with an exclusive contract with AT&T Wireless. This is a sad fact of the US wireless market that many phones are typically locked to a specific carrier if you want them to be affordable. This was true of the iPhone until just last year and pretty much every other phone when they first release. The problem is that unless you are not already locked into a contract or don’t have a smartphone, buying a phone like this is a major pain.
Dynamic Perspective – So how can a feature be a pro and a con at the same time? Well, lets just say that the Dynamic Perspective will take a lot of getting used to. The 3D effects generated by the tilting and swiveling of the screen can produce some ill effects especially for those susceptible to motion sickness. Apple encountered the same problem when it first introduced its Parallax Effect in iOS 7. Thankfully, Apple has an option to turn it off. Not so sure how much these effects can be turned on and off with the Fire Phone as it is a fairly integrated feature for some functions.
Reduce App Library – The Fire OS that runs the various Amazon devices including the Fire Phone and Kindle Tablets is essentially based upon the Google Android operating system. The problem is that it has been so heavily modified that it does not look or function like Android at all. While it does allow Amazon to integrate all their various features and interfaces, it means that it isn’t quite compatible with Android Apps. Instead, the applications must be modified for the Fire OS and then posted through Amazon’s App store. The result is that there are fewer applications available for Amazon’s devices than your standard Android device. Amazon is trying to make up for this particularly in the games aspect by starting a development team to produce apps exclusive to Amazon’s devices.
Carousel – Amazon’s Carousel has been a function ever since it launched its first Kindle Fire tablets. The concept is that it lets you quickly scan through for frequently used information, applications, books, etc. While this worked fairly well when the tablets were primarily used as ereaders, with the push into smart applications the interface is just a bit too clunky and cluttered compared to what it once was. The pin to front feature will keep your most important information at the ready but finding other items can be a major pain.
Other Items
I’ve talked about the pros and cons of the Fire Phone in terms of the big hits and misses on the features. There are other things that may be of note to people as well which I think are lesser issues. For instance, many have commented on the relative small size of the device. Its 4.7-inch screen is smaller than many new premium Android phones and features just a 1280×720 display screen. The thing is, many people still want a compact phone that will fit in a pocket easily and that is what the Fire Phone is doing. It is trying to compete with the iPhone 5S in terms of its size.
Amazon touts the camera on the Fire Phone as well. It has a 13MP image sensor that is larger than the iPhone 5S and with a slightly lower aperture as well. The thing is many people probably don’t care about the megapixels that much these days. If they did, then the Nokia Lumia 1020 with its 41MP image sensor would be a much bigger phone than it is. Amazon does include unlimited cloud storage for the photos that you take with the camera which is fairly impressive.
Finally you have the earbuds that Amazon is shipping with the phone. They include a flat cable and magnets inside of the earbuds to help keep the cable and buds from becoming a tangled mess. This is a nice step in terms of improved cable management but it is not a major feature that is going to make buyers pick one device over the other as many people that care much about audio quality will likely use some third party earbuds, headset or headphones.
Should You Get It
So, if you are already a Amazon Prime customer who also has other Amazon devices like the Kindle tablets or the Fire TV box, then the Fire Phone seems to be a bit better fit. I wouldn’t say that it is completely outstanding as most of the features of Prime can also be used through any iOS or Android device. The Firefly feature is probably the most standout feature as it helps those who already shop a lot through Amazon to quickly compare and purchase items which is what Amazon wants. This is a device designed to help consumer more through Amazon and if you not interested in that, then you will probably want to hold off in favor of some other smartphone options.