When Amazon launched the Fire Phone, the company knew it had its work cut out. It was a well-established company with its own merits but this is the first time it's venturing into the smartphone market. Did Amazon make the right decision?
CEO Jeff Bezos said the Amazon Fire Phone was inspired in part by a favorite childhood book, "Mr. Pine's Purple House." Mr. Pine lived on Vine Street where all the homes were identical, all painted in white. In his weariness, the old man took a bold step and painted his house purple. This radical move set a chain reaction on the street, prompting his neighbors to step away from what they've gotten so used to.
People are creatures of habit so the Fire Phone had to make an incredible impression to get them to change their ways, or at least enough to make them look away even from a moment from Apple and Samsung. Reviews so far, however, don't paint a very positive picture for Amazon.
The Fire Phone is an AT&T exclusive, selling for $199 on a two-year contract. It's running on a version of Android but isn't as powerful as smartphones on the high-end range despite costing nearly as much as top-tier models. To compensate, Amazon beefs up a contract by offering a subscription to Prime and unlimited photo storage. If an existing Prime subscription is in place, validity period is extended by a year.
At 4.7 inches, the Fire Phone is of the same size as one of the variants of the upcoming iPhone 6. It features a 720p display, which is average by today's standards, but many may not notice because videos still play beautifully. It also has 2GB RAM, an Adreno 330 GPU, and a Snapdragon 800 processor. The Fire Phone has a good grasp of the basics and, unfortunately, that's mostly what it can offer.
Aside from the usual features expected of smartphones, the Fire Phone is fitted with two special features: Dynamic Perspective and Firefly. Dynamic Perspective moves the screen depending on how you're looking at it by tracking your face with four infrared cameras. Firefly, on the other hand, is simply a nifty assistant. Dynamic Perspective has potential but outside of games and a pretty lockscreen, it really doesn't do much. Some may be right in labeling it as mere gimmick.
Is the Fire Phone akin to Mr. Pine's purple paint?
"Amazon's debut phone isn't bad, per se, but there's little incentive for anyone to switch carriers or platforms to buy it. Its unique features don't provide enough utility, and come at the expense of both battery life and performance," Engadget's Brad Molen said in his review.
