Amazon Fire Phone

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story imageToday, Amazon revealed the Fire Phone , its new Amazon branded phone. The device sports a quad-core 2.2GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB or 64GB storage, and a 13MP back-facing camera. Although the 4.7 inch screen is not actually 3D, a matrix of four front-facing cameras track your movements to alter your prospective.

What makes this an Amazon phone and not just another Android phone? Well, for starters, there is a dedicated hardware button to launch Firefly - Amazon's version of Eden-of-the-East - that can snap a picture and identify nearly any product and then link to the Amazon page. In short, it makes it really easy to buy things on Amazon. Also, Amazon is offering unlimited photo storage in the cloud. Together with Amazon Prime's new streaming video and music features, they seem to be really pushing the "Everything to the cloud!" approach.
Reply 9 comments

It's $650! (Score: 1, Interesting)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-18 19:39 (#25S)

And only runs on AT&T, the least loved GSM provider.

That's a ridiculous price when stuff like Motorola G / X costs half that. They're even higher than some of the high end Androids.

WTF Amazon? I thought they were going to go free/ad subsidized on this.

Has Bezos lost his way?

Re: It's $650! (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-18 19:59 (#25V)

It's $200 on contract, which isn't terrible. But between being carrier restricted, and the lack of useful distinguishing features, I don't see this selling well.

Re: It's $650! (Score: 1, Insightful)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-18 20:09 (#25X)

The only "distinguishing features" worth a damn are big screen, long battery life, Android/CM/etc., cheap, and sturdy.

Smartphones are commodities, whether Apple and Amazon have realized that or not.

$650 and they throw in some cloud storage. FSM on a pogo stick that's missing the market.

Re: It's $650! (Score: 1)

by kwerle@pipedot.org on 2014-06-18 20:21 (#25Z)

Yeah, doesn't seem like an iPhone killer. And if it can't kill and iPhone, it certainly can't kill other Androids.

skeptical (Score: 1)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-06-19 09:06 (#264)

Yeah, I'm skeptical too. They're either thinking "this can be a white box, generic phone sold by a company people like to buy from," or they're thinking "this will increase sales of Amazon products." If it's the latter, the obvious question is, "why not just an app anyone can run on their existing phone?" More likely, this is going to try to position itself as a media consuming pipeline between your pocket and Amazon's cloud services, providing easy access to movies and music, kind of like a "KindleFireTV for your pocket."

I'm not bullish on this one, though.

[sigh] I remember when the Internet was an open platform, level playing field. Now between Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google, you scarcely have any reason to visit anywhere else on the web whatsoever. Oh yeah, Facebook [yawn].

Re: skeptical (Score: 1)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-06-19 12:28 (#265)

Interesting commentary here, by the way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7912647
Google sells you a device so they can show you an ad encouraging you to buy a rake. In turn Google gets a sliver of the profits from selling a rake in the form of ad revenue. Amazon sells you a device so they can show you an ad encouraging you to buy a rake. Amazon sells you the rake, has it delivered in 2 days, and makes 100% of the profit. It's not that people will actively look for that integration, but that it exists gives Amazon a significant advantage imho.

Re: skeptical (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-20 02:19 (#26T)

I see a market for device that can detect the presence of these Amazon phones. The customers will be brick & mortar stores that don't want to let this camera-phone-cross-shopping-app into the store.

Re: skeptical (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-21 04:00 (#27H)

Brick & Mortar, or Brick Your Mobile?