Amazon Reveals Their Long Awaited Fire Phone Smartphone


At a special event earlier today, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled the company’s long rumored entry into the mobile phone market, a smartphone called Fire phone.

As ABC reports, the Fire phone is larger than an iPhone, yet smaller than leading Android phones. The 720p HD screen measures 4.7 inches diagonally, and is designed for one-handed use, according to Bezos. The screen is said to be bright enough to be seen in outdoor lighting, and the phone also features a quad-core 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and 2GB of RAM.

Touting the phone’s features at Seattle’s Fremont Studios, Bezos highlighted the Fire phone’s camera. Likely a major selling point for the phone, the camera features image stabilization to counteract shaking. Purchasers of the Fire phone will also receive unlimited cloud storage for their photos, according to Bezos.

BGR reports that the Fire phone features a highly customized version of the Android operating system, very similar to that found on the Kindle Fire tablets. The key differentiating feature of the phone is that many of its features revolve around four forward facing cameras that facilitate 3D effects as well as gesture controls. The Fire phone features six cameras in total.

The phone is deeply integrated with Amazon’s Prime services. Amazon’s Mayday service will provide users with a direct video link to customer service from the phone, while a feature called Firefly allows users to scan barcodes with the Fire phone and immediately link to them in Amazon’s store.

The same app will also recognize music or TV shows and identify them in Amazon’s digital store. The phone features a dedicated Firefly button that will pull up the feature in a second, according to Amazon. Dedicated kindle software, as well as access to Amazon’s video and music services, are included with Fire phone.

As The Inquisitr previously reported, images of the Fire Phone were leaked around the middle of April. The photos led to much speculation about what the phone’s feature set may be, with claims that a second device would be launched later in the year by Amazon.

According to ABC News, the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon plans to take a similar approach to the one that Apple used when it first launched the iPhone, designating an exclusive carrier for the smartphone. In this case, reports are that AT&T will be the exclusive carrier for the Fire phone. Analysts have also speculated that the Fire phone may come with a data plan that allows users to take advantage of Amazon’s services without using up their data limits.

[Image via NPR]

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