Amazon has finally announced the much speculated smartphone – Fire Phone – for the USA region. The new Amazon Fire Phone offers 4.7-inch HD display and has a home button in the front. What really makes the Fire phone stand out is the new Fire OS 3.5.0 which brings 3D-like effects with head tracking powered by four cameras in the front of the device. Amazon will offer unlocked and contract-free Fire Phone at $649 (Rs 38,989 approx.) for 32 GB and $749 (Rs 44,987 approx.) for 64 GB model in the US.
Amazon Fire phone is finally a reality bringing along decent hardware with host of Amazon services smartly layered on top of the Android Open Source Project code. The Fire Phone features a 4.7-inch IPS LCD display with 720p resolution, thus pushing pixel density of 315 pixels per inch. Measuring 8.9 mm thick, the Fire phone is powered by quad-core 2.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 mobile processor and 2 GB RAM. By default, the Fire Phone will be offered in 32 GB and 64 GB storage models.
Amazon has loaded the new Fire OS 3.5.0 that has been tailored on top of AOSP code for the Fire Phone. There are four infrared cameras placed in the front – two on the top and two at the bottom to track the head movements and thereby aid the 3D like effect offering user interface. Apart from the usual Volume and Sleep buttons, the phone has a Firefly button on the left side. Firefly button takes the help of rear cameras to recognize items at a super store and can identify over 100 million items which can be found in the Amazon store.
Of course, there will be Amazon App Store that will bring you all the Android apps. At the rear is a 13 megapixel camera with f/2.0 Aperture wide lens made from 5-elements. There is an LED flash to support the camera and also Optical Image Stabilization along with Multi-frame HDR. Basically, the camera is equipped enough to get into imaging.
Amazon has integrated dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus audio processing for best sound output and it supports variety of audio as well as video file formats.
By default, the Fire Phone supports nano SIM and can connect to HSPA+ networks and offers 4G LTE supports as well. For longer run time, it offers 2400 mAh battery that promises Talk time of up to 22 hours.
As of now, Amazon plans to offer the Fire Phone in US region only. Even if you manage to get it to India, you can get it working with Indian Telecom operators. However it would be a pain to use the host of Amazon Prime services and most importantly, may not be covered under warranty.