Amazon Fire Phone

Amazon Fire Phone Review: A Unique Approach to Smartphones

The Amazon Fire Phone, released in 2014, was Amazon’s first attempt at entering the competitive smartphone market. It introduced innovative features such as Dynamic Perspective and Firefly, but despite these efforts, it struggled to gain traction. Here’s an in-depth look at the Fire Phone’s key features and performance.

Design & Build

  • Premium Feel: The Fire Phone features a glass front and back with rubberized edges, giving it a premium feel despite being on the heavier side, weighing 160g. It has a 4.7-inch display, making it compact and easy to use with one hand. However, its glass back makes it prone to smudges and scratches.
  • Physical Buttons: The device includes a dedicated Firefly button on the side and physical volume and power buttons, maintaining a simple yet functional design.

Display

  • 4.7-inch IPS LCD Display: The Fire Phone has a 720p HD display with a resolution of 1280×720 (315 ppi). While not as sharp as Full HD or higher-resolution displays found on competitors, it provides decent color accuracy and brightness. The display is sufficient for everyday tasks such as browsing, reading, and watching videos, though it falls short in pixel density compared to flagship devices of the time.

Performance

  • Snapdragon 800 Processor: Powered by a 2.2 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor with 2GB of RAM, the Fire Phone delivers solid performance for general tasks such as browsing, multitasking, and light gaming. It runs Amazon’s Fire OS 3.5, which is based on Android but heavily customized for Amazon’s ecosystem.
  • Storage Options: The Fire Phone comes with 32GB or 64GB of internal storage but lacks a microSD slot, limiting expandable storage options.

Dynamic Perspective

  • Innovative 3D Effect: One of the Fire Phone’s unique features is Dynamic Perspective, which uses four front-facing cameras and sensors to track the user’s head movement, creating a 3D-like effect. This allows users to tilt the phone to navigate through menus, maps, and certain apps. While it’s a fun gimmick, its practical use is limited, and many found it to be more of a novelty than a necessary feature.

Firefly Technology

  • Content Recognition: Firefly is another standout feature, allowing the phone to recognize over 100 million items, including products, songs, movies, and barcodes, just by pointing the camera at them. This feature is deeply integrated into Amazon’s ecosystem, making it easy for users to buy recognized products on Amazon or retrieve information about media content. While innovative, it was heavily tied to the idea of driving users towards Amazon shopping.

Camera

  • 13MP Rear Camera: The Fire Phone sports a 13MP rear camera with optical image stabilization (OIS), which performs well in good lighting conditions, capturing sharp and detailed images. It also supports 1080p video recording. However, its low-light performance is average compared to competitors like the iPhone 5s or Samsung Galaxy S5.
  • 2.1MP Front Camera: The front camera is decent for video calls and selfies but isn’t a major highlight of the device.

Battery Life

  • 2400mAh Non-Removable Battery: The Fire Phone’s 2400mAh battery provides moderate battery life, lasting a full day with light use but draining faster during heavy usage due to features like Dynamic Perspective. In real-world use, the battery performance was often cited as one of the phone’s weaker points.

Software & Ecosystem

  • Fire OS & Amazon Integration: The Fire Phone runs on Fire OS, Amazon’s heavily customized version of Android. While Fire OS provides a smooth experience and is well-integrated with Amazon services like Prime Video, Kindle, and Amazon Music, it lacks access to the Google Play Store. Instead, users are limited to the Amazon Appstore, which has fewer apps compared to Android’s Play Store or Apple’s App Store.

Connectivity

  • The Fire Phone supports 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, and NFC for connectivity. While it covers most basic needs, the Bluetooth 3.0 standard is outdated compared to newer phones offering Bluetooth 4.0 or higher.

Conclusion

The Amazon Fire Phone introduced several unique features, such as Dynamic Perspective and Firefly, but these innovations were not enough to make up for its shortcomings, especially in comparison to other flagship devices. While it offered tight integration with Amazon’s ecosystem, it was limited by Fire OS and the lack of access to the Google Play Store. The phone’s heavy focus on driving users to Amazon services and products made it feel more like a shopping tool than a fully-featured smartphone.

Pros:

  • Innovative features like Dynamic Perspective and Firefly
  • Good camera performance with optical image stabilization
  • Tight integration with Amazon’s ecosystem

Cons:

  • Limited app availability due to lack of Google Play Store
  • Gimmicky features with limited practical use
  • Average battery life and display compared to competitors

Overall, the Amazon Fire Phone was an ambitious attempt to break into the smartphone market but ultimately failed to resonate with a broader audience due to its narrow focus on Amazon services and limited app ecosystem.