Introduced as "the only smartphone with Dynamic Perspective", Amazon Fire Phone was first revealed in an event in Seattle on June 18, 2014. After months of rumors and expectations, Fire Phone distinguishes itself through an array of special software features and services that none others have. Useful?
Amazon first attempted to create some anticipation to the new product with a 50-second video that showed consumers reacting to something offscreen. The YouTube video teaser that was published on June 4th showed user reactions who say things like, "I've never seen anything like this." Others said "it moved with me" and "it's very real life", is the Amazon's first informal introduction for its rumored first smartphone with 3D display.
As the rumor spreads, speculations are pouring. And at the event, Amazon showed that those rumors are actually true. The Fire Phone features a 4.7" HD resolution display packed with Gorilla Glass 3 and a rubber frame around the edges. The device is packed with ambient light sensor and Dynamic Image Contrast to make maintain colors in its 1280x720 pixel 315ppi display. The buttons that are made of aluminum and stainless steel details are protected in a rubberized polyurethane grip.
For its powerhouse, the Fire Phone features a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 2.2GHz processor, Adreno 330 graphics and 2GB of RAM. As expected, the device runs a forked version of Android, Fire OS. 3.5.0. The device has a nanoSIM preinstalled with a microUSB 2.0 and 3.5mm headphone ports.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said that the Fire Phone is optimized for one handed use, even though it has a larger display. At first glance, the display looks long and wide, similar to that on Apple's iPhone.
Fire Phone's display may not be Full HD or Quad HD, but Amazon wants its users to watch as much Prime content as possible with the phone. As a start for its incentive, Amazon includes a 12-month membership to its Prime service with the purchase of a Fire Phone. Prime offers 33 million titles of music, movies, and TV shows, in addition to free shipping on products bought from Amazon’s store. To help Fire Phone owners make the most of Prime's contents, it added a feature called Second Screen, which is similar to Apple's AirPlay and Google's Chromecast. And because video is so tied to the Amazon experience, the company has also included IMDB's X-Ray.
The device that houses dual Dolby Digital Plus stereo speakers, has a 13MP camera on the back with a f/2.0 lens and optical image stabilization and a 2.1MP front-facing camera. The camera has a dedicated hardware button on the side. The company said that the camera shutter will stay open longer to ensure that stunning results in low-light shots. With it, users can also take panorama, burst, and action shots. With unlimited photo cloud storage, Fire Phone owners can take as many pictures as they want without worrying about storage constraints.
Amazon stated that its Mayday feature, which lets users call an Amazon tech expert 24/7 in case of a problem is available on the device.
Just like how the rumor speculated, Fire Phone is packed with Firefly: a feature that helps users find the products and objects they encounter in the real world, online. The feature uses its camera to recognize books, DVDs, phone numbers, QR codes, CDs, games, and all other kinds of media. Once Firefly figures out what the object is, it searches for that product in its database and finds a version that the user can buy on Amazon. If the object is not a product, Firefly will connect to Wikipedia to display the subject.
Amazon says that it can recognize more than 100 million items, including 240,000 movies and TV shows, 160 live TV channels, and 70 million different products. With a dedicated button for this feature, Fire Phone users can access Firefly easily.
Fire Phone's most highlighted feature is its 3D effects with Dynamic Perspective. Prior of its launch, Amazon that is the first to implement 3D effects on a smartphone, was speculated to evolutionize how people will use a smartphone.
Amazon calls its 3D effects "Dynamic Perspective". As the name suggests, the feature dynamically changes viewing experience depending upon perspective, as well as how the user holds and moves the phone. The display is meant to give viewers a sense of looking deeper into the screen (positive parallax) rather than creating images that "jump out" (negative parallax). The effect it gives is meant to make the flat phone display feels more like a window into a three-dimensional plane.
With Dynamic Perspective, Amazon introduced several uses of it: interacting with images, web pages, and other content like maps, in a different way. With a simple tilt of the Fire Phone, users can change the point of view on images, map, or 3D-enabled apps. Bezos demonstrated Dynamic Perspective by revealing several lock screens on the phone, and showed how the phone's display "moves" as the user's perspective changes.
Bezos first look at the Empire State building from several different angles, and it seems as though the building is three dimensional. Then he took the audience into the gaming arena by showing off how the feature works when playing Tofu Fury.
The effect can also work when the user is shopping in Amazon. With Amazon's new Shopping app, users can view products from every angle. And when the user is browsing the internet, the user can tilt the Fire Phone back to scroll down. This effect also works with ebooks in the Kindle app. Dynamic Perspective features can also allow users to access app menus more easily: tilt the phone left and an app will pop up; tilting to the right, information and shortcuts appear.
Dynamic Perspective works accurately by tracking the user's head motions. The Fire Phone packes four front-facing cameras, placed in a 120-degree angle on each side of the device. Four cameras handle the head tracking, with two taking on the task at any given time. Each of the cameras is also equipped with infrared lights, giving them the ability to track the user's head in low-light environments. "No matter how you hold the phone, we can pick the best two [cameras] for stereo vision," said Bezos.
Fueling the device, the Fire Phone is equipped with a 2,400mAh battery. The company said in release notes that the Fire Phone has 285 hours of standby time, up to 22 hours of talk time, up to 65 hours of audio playback and up to 11 hours of video playback.
In the event, Amazon finished up its explanation of the new feature with a call to developers to convert their Android apps into better ones that work on the Fire Phone. The company is also making a Developer Kit for Dynamic Perspective available.
Conclusion
Amazon's Fire Phone with all of its features looks like its on the heat. The company that has already brought Kindle tablets and TV media streamer, is showing that development is not going to stop just yet. And with its Fire Phone, Amazon is aiming to take some of Apple's iPhone massive profit margin.
The company that had experience with Kindle tablets, is taking user into a new experience, especially with Dynamic Perspective. But for people, Fire Phone is like a machine for Amazon's e-commerce storefront.
While the company is hoping that its 3D smartphone will represent something of a breakthrough, the company will need to find the perfect mix of quality, novelty, and pricing, especially if it wants to go head-to-head with the already successful market leader for Android phones: Samsung.
Typical Android phone experiences a 50 percent price drop after two months on the market, and what with better and cheaper Android phones being released every other month, the pace of markdowns is on the rise. The Samsung Galaxy S5, for instance, saw multiple 50 percent discounts just one month after its release. And by judging that Fire Phone is Amazon's first smartphone, the price is not expected to fall anytime soon after its release.
The Fire Phone is running Amazon's Fire OS version 3.5, which is a modified version of Android. The OS is heavily modified that there is not glimpse of Google's OS in use. Popular apps from Google like Maps, Gmail and Chrome are still missing, as well as the well-stocked Play Store. Amazon's own app store has a fair amount of apps on its shelves, but it still doesn't offer the full category of the official Play Store.
Furthermore, Apple, Samsung, and Google have all learned to improve the bits that people actually need after much time of trial and error. Amazon, as newcomer, don't have the experience its competitors had.
However, Amazon have several advantage that it holds under its sleeves. It's power over consumers comes from its loyal base of Amazon users. According to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners:
- 42 percent of Amazon customers have Amazon Prime, making 27.8 million Amazon Prime members.
- 48 percent of Amazon customers have an Amazon Kindle Fire, or 31.3 million Amazon customers own an Amazon Kindle Fire or e-Reader.
- Amazon Prime members spend twice as much as non-members.
- Amazon Kindle Fire and e-Reader owners spend 30 percent more than others.
While the Fire Phone isn't packed with the top-notch terms of raw specs, the company is not trying to compete with the latest and the greatest. It's just a way to give something that has never been implemented before, closing the flaws some others have, and providing a new gateway to its store.
The Fire Phone price ranges from $199.00 - $649.00 depending on its storage capacity and service agreement. The phone that is available exclusively with AT&T, is available as a pre-order after the event.