A phone for Amazon addicts everywhere!
I held the phone for a few minutes and played around with it. It had five cameras looking at my eyes, four of which were used to display depth appropriately. I thought it was cool, but it faded away as soon as I started fiddling with the device.
Overview
Underneath the Amazon Fire Phone’s operating system is an open-sourced version of Android, so you can run your Android apps purchased through the Amazon App store. But if you want to migrate away from your Samsung Galaxy S3, you will not be able to access the Android Play Store without going through hoops.
It is pricey if you want to purchase it off contract, which will hit your wallet at $650. If you want to get a carrier, your only choice is AT&T.
Device-wise, it’s heavier than the Galaxy S5. You can’t install a Micro SD card into it, which is okay because it comes with either 32 or 64GB of space out of the box, but battery-life is less than the S5. The rear-facing camera is 13MP only, and that’s not really a deal-breaker since it performs as well as any camera out there. Display resolution isn’t as great as the larger Samsung and HTC phones out there, but it’s acceptable for what it is.
Why buy the Amazon Fire Phone?
Here are four reason to why you might consider buying it:
1- You love 3D.
The phone’s main feature, called Dynamic Perspective, uses four cameras to figure out how you are looking at the display and adjusts your field of view, giving you the illusion of depth and 3D.
2- You love to shop at Amazon.
The phone comes with a feature called Firefly, which allows you to scan with the camera to look at barcodes, email addresses, phone numbers and URLs. Then the phone lets you use this information to call someone, load a web page, send an email or buy something at Amazon. Primarily, the reason for this is to buy stuff at Amazon and to search and find items via Amazon’s barcodes, which is nifty anywhere if you are trying to figure out if something is cheaper online than your Big Box or Brick-and-Mortar store.
3- You love to take it easy.
The phone comes with Mayday. By calling Mayday, you connect via video chat to an Amazon representative, who can help you with the phone or any tech issue around the house. It’s great for people whose brother or cousin isn’t returning their calls because the router’s acting up again. It is also better than Siri and S Voice. A rep can also fix your phone remotely if you have any issues with it.
4- You already have Amazon Prime.
You can use Amazon’s Kindle Drive and watch movies out of the box. It comes with a year of Amazon Prime for free, too!
Conclusion
Unfortunately, there may be better-equipped phones than the Amazon Fire. In terms of hardware, it’s about a couple of years behind some of them, and the 3D gimmick (it’s actually 2D that makes an image look like 3D) won’t wow you long enough to want to continue using it. However, for you loyal Amazon users, it already deeply integrates with Amazon services. In addition, Mayday, Firefly and the free Amazon Prime are probably going to make your Amazon experience much more enriching.
Robert Gauna is Colorado Boulevard’s Technology Contributor. Robert is a Systems Architect with 15 years experience in several IT fields providing guidance and implementation plans for startup companies.
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