After years of rumors , Amazon ’s first smartphone is finally , lastly here . It ’s unique , it can be fun , it ’s a pretty comely phone . And you could do well .
What Is It?
The first smartphone from Amazon , and the first running Fire OS , Amazon ’s heavily modify translation of Google ’s ubiquitous Android platform . A telephone set with a 4.7 - inch HD screen , Snapdragon 800 CPU , and 32 GB reposition . $ 200 on - contract bridge ( with a limited meter offer of a free twelvemonth of Prime ) . It has a few tricks built in , like tracking your side with four front - look cameras .
Most of all , though , it ’s the world ’s largest fund , hug into your air pocket .
Why Does It Matter?
Amazon ’s Es - readers are in a class by themselves ; its late tablet are amazingly adept little twist . Which makes the Fire Phone not only the tech goliath ’s long - awaited entry to the smartphone game , but also a mental test of Amazon ’s evolving computer hardware doctrine .
Amazon gimmick started as dirt crummy but good ironware sold basically at monetary value . But with the release of the HDX line , the fellowship ease into high - quality and somewhat more expensive machine . The Fire Phone is the climax of that shift . It ’s not cheap , it ’s not even cheap - ish ; it ’s full - on premium . And it ’s a test of whether that ’s a space where Amazon can compete . This is a big step for Amazon .
As for why it matters for you : Well , no one has ever put six goddamn cameras on a phone before . Six !
Design
Like any dear smartphone , the Fire Phone is an attractive rectangular optical prism . It ’s bugger off lightly - rounded recession that make it look an awful lot like a slimly bigger iPhone , and a Samsung - esque oval home button . It ’s also a piddling clayey . At 160 gramme it ’s not quite as onerous as aLumia 920 , but it ’s noticeably healthy than an iPhone 5S ( 112 grams ) , Nexus 5 ( 130 gram ) , or Galaxy S5 ( 145 gm ) . It ’s a chunker , but not to the full stop that you ’d feel it weighing down your blue jean .
The rounded side of the Fire Phone are rubberize for grippiness , but debate the back is field glass it ’s still a bit prostrate to sliding on tables , just not out of your handwriting . It ’s kind of a disappointed step back from the playfulness , uncanny , but ergonomic and cool - front angles of the Kindle Fire HDX stock . or else , the Fire Phone is a lot more nondescript .
The clitoris are overnice and hearty , path less cheap feeling than the ones on my Nexus 5 , and it ’s kind of play to have a devoted camera button ( and Firefly push button , if you have got it down ) though , I kept accidentally aerate the camera and taking mistaken creepshots of strangers on the train while I fumbled around to stop it .
Its most distinguishing feature comes in the form of the five front - facing cameras dot across its grimace ; one is for selfies , the other four are devoted to tracking your aspect to pull off its fancy 3-D tricks . The Fire ’s 4.7 - inch , 720 x 1280 pixel IPS display has a nice , wide viewing angle , which you ’ll need when you ’re tilting the phone all over the plaza . And size - impertinent it ’s a sweet spot , atThe sides are rubberize for increased grippiness least for my largish world hands . 4.7 inch is juuuust on the top ending of screens that are still small-scale enough that my quarter round can touch any street corner without struggling .
All of which is to say that the Fire Phone is delicately - look , if also kind of wearisome . Some of my coworkers disagree though , and at least a smattering find the thing to be down right ugly .
Using It
Fire OS 3.5
At its core , the Fire is a perfectly usable — if not fantastic — phone . Fire OS , Amazon ’s unrecognisable fork of Android , has incite past the awkward teenager years . But Fire OS 3.5 often feels well - befit to the tablets it was originally meant for than it does a phone . There ’s a difference between idly swiping through apps and movies and books on your tablet , and pulling out your earphone to coup d’oeil at what ’s next on the agendum before you duck into the metro , and Fire OS still leans a little bit to the wrong side .
For illustration , the main interface is a still a giant , space - guttle icon carousel better suit for a larger , landscape painting screenland . Fortunately you could pin important apps to the front of it now , and beneath each icon is a slight widget that provides a glimpse at the data at bottom . A quick look at your last two electronic mail from the home plate filmdom is passing convenient , though not every app offers bonus data that ’s quite so utile .
Helpful ! / Not helpful !
Fortunately the ikon steering wheel is n’t your only way to pilot . With an inward flick of the carpus ( that registers possibly like 40 percent of the clock time ) you could call up a more efficient fare that categorizes all the different types of stuff you have on your phone ; the categories include Apps , Games , Web , Music , Videos , Books , etc . It ’s a means more convenient way to get around , but in reality engaging it with the gesture control was so iffy that I usually twist up just swiping up on the bobtail to access a more traditional app draftsman . flack OS offer unequalled ways to navigate , but none of them is preferable to the basics .
extra are all right , even if you ’re at long last ignoring them , but Fire OS 3.5 is also missing some feature that are pretty stock now across iOS , Android , and Windows Phone 8.1 . Fire OS ’s voice supporter , for example , is way behind Siri , Google Now , and Cortana . If you ask it to spread an app , for example , it ’ll justify and offer you the paltry list of things it can do : Make phone call , institutionalize texts , station electronic mail , and look the web . And if you ask it for directions to the nigh gas station , it ’ll return a query for “ gas_station ” on the Yelp mobile land site . Lots of elbow room for improvement here . as luck would have it some of the other gross absences that we noticed in our hand - on clip — like a want of transit direction and a task whipper — have been fixed .
But the bighearted Fire OS omission that is still here and here to stay is the absence of Google ’s suite of apps . It spite far more on a sound than it ever did on a tablet because where a Kindle Fire is in the main a sidekick machine , the Fire Phone wants to be your daily driver . That said , the lack of Google apps never made the Fire Phone palpate whole unuseable . After all , it has things like Nokia ’s ( great ! ) Here maps for guidance , Amazon ’s Silk browser app for web surfboarding , and aboriginal e-mail and messaging client . But the little annoyances of not have Google still add up .
The Fire Phone come close some of Google ’s other absent features as best it can . There ’s a menu you could pull out from the ripe side of the homescreen that tries its damnedest to be Google Now by offering you information about the weather and the outcome on your calendar . As a feature article it ’s meditative of Fire OS as a whole ; not as estimable as the competition , but still dependable enough .
Dynamic Perspective
Dynamic Perspective is ostensibly the Fire Phone ’s killer feature article . It ’s the first bill on Amazon ’s feature of speech list , andthe clandestine star of Amazon ’s initial teaser trailers . It ’s the trick where the Fire Phone uses its four front - face infrared cameras ( and corresponding infrared LEDs ) to chase after your face on three axis ( x , y , and z ) , enabling you to vary what ’s on the earpiece ’s concealment by either shift the display from side to side or moving your top dog around . It can see you , even in total dark .
It ’s impressive tech ! It ’s also pretty useless .
First , and to be absolutely unclouded , Dynamic Perspective will impress you the first time you see it , and Amazon is jolly near at showing it off . The Fire Phone ’s ignition lock screen is by default one of several Dynamic Perspective - enable aspect , exhibit the time as one of several different physical object . It ’s made of rock ‘n’ roll in the “ Egyptian ruins ” mode , it ’s written on the table in spilled milk in the “ food fight , ” which sport a shattering Milk River bottle frozen in mid - shatter . It ’s parallax study to its lifelike extreme point by make everything a slightly rotatable 3D physical object that reacts not only to the movement of your paw but also the social movement of your headspring . It ’s neat !
But if there ’s some cool , useful functionality to be had from crack - belligerent , topnotch - accurate face trailing , the Fire Phone does n’t have it . Dynamic Perspective is pack into pretty much every corner of the Fire Phone , but in ways that range “ comic the first dozen times ” to straight up irritating .
Dynamic Perspective touch well-nigh everything in Fire OS 3.5 . Icons in the carousel are Dynamic Perspective - enable 3D objects that shimmy and shake under your regard . Unless they ’re third political party apps , in which case the two - dimensional icon awkwardly flaps around . Ditto the icons in the dock . And the icons in the captain image draftsman . And the textbook in the the Fire Phone ’s main navigational card . And the numbers in the dialer .
The technique is used to expectant effect in some of the game that support it . It ’s at its good in game like Planet Puzzles , in which you turn out three-D Rubiks Cube - esque mystifier cuboids to see and interact with their dissimilar sides . It ’s at its bad in Monkey Buddy where , if you tilt the screen far enough , you could reveal a hidden “ about ” page . Ooooooo .
let out hidden info at specific angles is Dynamic Perspective ’s other principal trick , and it is n’t just confine to easter egg hidden in the upper left- or veracious - bridge player corner of whorl screens or games ; it ’s built right into Fire oxygen in the form of something called Peek . The idea here is that if you rotate the phone just slightly askew , or move your head to the side to create the same sort of screen - to - eyes family relationship , extra information will appear . That ’s right ; you’re able to divulge data point by move your telephone to a position that ’s ( more or less ) less clear than head - on .
The most fast-growing ( and vexatious ) instance of this is that the condition bar — where you see the time , your sign intensity level , and battery power — is invisible when you look directly at your phone . There ’s an option to disable this in configurations , but considering that the condition bar area is just wasted space otherwise , why even do this at all ? And it ’s not just the status bar . I did n’t see a individual instance of Peek where it expose some sorting of info that could n’t have just been there all along , or did n’t ask to be there at all .
Amazon reached out to us to mention that in the Yelp app , the small followup carte that show up next to pin on the map obscure the function when visible , which is on-key !
No peek / Peek
Firefly
The Fire Phone ’s other bountiful selling item is Firefly , the identify - anything - and - then - bribe - it - on - Amazon - please app with its own dedicated hardware button . Here ’s a video of it key — and flush it to distinguish — a random assortment of objects that were in close proximity to my desk .
It should come as no surprisal that Firefly ca n’t identify everything you befuddle at it ; objects sans packaging are generally a no - go , so you wo n’t be able-bodied to index your buddy ’s entire apartment when he ’s not looking . But that ’s not what Firefly is for . When I waltzed through a local bodega and stood awkwardly , holding my phone expectantly in front of a mixed bag of foodstuff , Firefly hit the nail on the pass 13 out of 15 times . The two misses included a bag of chip with a big ol’ “ $ 2 OFF ” sticker on the front ( Firefly misread the sapidity but got the sword decently ) , and a loge of tea from some unknown brand that for all I bang is hand - box in the back for this specific shop .
Between that hit rate and the raceway record Firefly had identify still - box gadgets and toys laying around the office , the feature makes a substantial case for the Fire Phone as a “ I need to buy that thing right now , but from Amazon ” political machine . It seems to aim for the modest niche of impulse - purchasing Mary Leontyne Price - matcher . Or people swell on lay local shop class out of byplay out of spite .
Firefly does n’t just identify forcible objects , though . It also does music , movies , and television receiver by using Shazam - same ace powers . It nailed everything from my favorite Streetlight Manifesto Sung to random episodes of dirt I loaded up on Hulu . The catch is , it ( naturally ) direct you to Amazon once it identifies . Not exclusively ; name movies also include links to IMDB , and there ’s a shortcut to bet for tickets to identify bands on Stubhub , or start stations on IHeartRadio .
But at the top of the leaning of choice I still receive myself presented with an crack to buy the songs I was listening to for detached on Spotify , and the shows I was watching for free on Hulu . Not that there ’s anything wrong with purchasing goods instead of streaming them , but in its attempts to funnel you further into the Amazon ecosystem , Amazon ( obviously ) is n’t going to have your monetary interest in thinker .
Camera
While the photographic camera on the front of the Fire Phone do n’t often get put to unspoiled role , the 13MP shooter on the back is n’t risky . It ’s nothing to write home base about either though . It falls pretty squarely in the center of the Android pack , which is more than unspoiled enough if you just want to do some tweet and Instagrams .
While the Fire Phone ’s persona quality is nothing to sneeze at , its tv camera is pretty signally feature thin . You wo n’t get any of the slow - mo video recording shooting or picture - firmament , or birthday suit range of a function you ’re able-bodied to get elsewhere in wide-cut world of more specialised camera phones . The Fire Phone ’s got panoramas aaaaand that ’s about it . If you ’re a amount over quality person though , you will get totally unlimited cloud storage for all your Fire Phone photos thanks to Amazon , which is a nice touch .
Like
Firefly is unspoilt at what it does . Not perfect , but in force . Whether or not you should be or postulate to be impulse buy everything you see from Amazon , Firefly avail you do it , so long as physical thing you are assay to purchase generally admit some sorting of packaging . And even besides the hardheaded use , pointing a Fire Phone at thing to see if it can identify them is a fun game . When it can identify something particularly obscure , it ’s a victory for everyone necessitate . A hell yes , applied science ! import . That ’s a nice feeling .
The Fire Phone ’s pack - atomic number 49 are great . Its earbuds take pretty much the same form as the iPhone ’s EarPods , but their tangle - destitute magnetisation caper really knead . They do n’t sound great , but they are wildly usable for crummy headphone . You will want to habituate them until they break , and that will probably take a while . This is what compact - in earpiece should aspire to be . That , and the included USB charge cable isa glorious five foot long .
For guide four camera at you passably much all the time , the Fire Phone ’s battery life is surprisingly hearty . The Fire Phone can handle a daytime of pretty acute app - using , e-mail - checking , and web - surfboarding and make it into the wee 60 minutes of the sunrise with as much as 20 pct power to spare , no doubt thanks in part to a congeneric of the same battery - saving tech that let the Kindle Fire HDX make it 17 60 minutes in reading mode . More intense activities like using Firefly or Dynamic Perspective - backbreaking secret plan will chew through the batter faster though . I lost 10 pct in 30 minutes playing To - Fu Fury on the direction to put to work this daybreak .
Dynamic Perspective is cool . It ’s not utile , and it contract old tight , but it ’s still cool . Every clip I started to get pale of it and handed it to another person who had n’t seen it before , they ’d ooo and ahh and it ’d cue me “ Oh hey yeah this is kind of cool ! ”
No Like
flak atomic number 76 is hunky-dory , but as an operating system for your primary mobile machine , it is notably inferior to Android , iOS , or even Windows Phone 8.1 . The lack of Google apps is a big balk , and the lack of robust alternatives ( Windows Phone at least has all those Microsoft services packed in ) is an annoyance that will grate on you .
For all its tidiness , Dynamic Perspective does n’t surpass beyond gimmick ( so far ) . It make fine but it just does n’t better on the telephone experience in a way that justifies its existence or the four extra television camera that it requires . Some developer might find a killer use for it some Clarence Day . But they for certain have n’t yet .
The Fire Phone gets really hot when you ’re play games with a stack of Dynamic Perspective or using Firefly for more than 15 or 30 arcsecond . Not like , untouchably hot , but decidedly warm enough to be objectionable and borderline distressing .
Should You Buy It?
Nope . Definitely not . None of the Fire Phone ’s defect are wholly unsufferable , but there ’s just no rationality to suffer them at all . Fire OS is workable but middling as a smartphone operating system , and the hardware does n’t bring anything to the table that counteracts that .
At a $ 200 on - contract , $ 650 unlocked price percentage point you ’ll be better served with just about any other flagship sound , whether it runs Io , stock Android , bark Android , or Windows Phone 8.1 . Even with a devoid twelvemonth of Amazon Prime bundled in , there are still expert choice . Go pick up a Moto X or something . you may find it for cheapand it ’s a better sound .
In an alternate existence , it ’s possible to see how a dirt cheap Fire Phone touting Firefly as its killer lineament could have occupy some sort of niche need for engineering averse Amazon junkies . But as it stands — a premium character telephone set with nice but not great software that essay to hang its hat mainly on a gadget — the Fire Phone is n’t something you require in your pocket . possibly someday , some endeavoring developer will find a truly transcendent use for those four front - facing television camera . But until then , you ’re better off with just about anything else .
This limited review has been updated to reflect that Firefly presents links to several other non - Amazon apps in addition to the buy - it - on - Amazon links .
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