Amazon's Fire Phone (1 Viewer)

Looks kinda interesting.http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/18/5821490/amazon-fire-phone-to-sell-on-ATT-for-199-on-contract

I was impressed by the presentation. I'm contemplating a move to the Fire Phone if the phone holds up to the fancy demo...

Here's the thing, the Fire Phone (like the Fire tablets) are "Exit through the gift shop" except you never leave. You enter the gift shop and stay there. Most people expected that meant that Amazon would get creative with the costs, subsidizing the phone more or dropping data prices etc. Giving a free year of prime seems backwards in that respect.I'm clearly not a Fire Phone target audience. I would probably use it if I got one free, but I wouldn't pay for it. Will there be enough folks who will? I'm dubious but we will see! You can count on Amazon iterating quickly tho. This is a good shot at catching up and there will be no fragmentation issues. There is value in that. Has potential but it's not on my radar probably for another year or two.

I was vaguely interested in the Amazon phone when there were rumors of it being priced at $200. As with the Kindle I figured they would sell it for cheap hoping to profit on the back end. I wouldn't sign a two year service contract if even if they were giving the phone away, and $200 on top of a contract doesn't even strike me as a realistic offer. I'm hardly an expert on such things, but I would think that the Fire Phone will will struggle to attract customers when it's just as expensive as top shelf phones from Apple and Samsung.

Carl Johnson said:

I'm hardly an expert on such things, but I would think that the Fire Phone will will struggle to attract customers when it's just as expensive as top shelf phones from Apple and Samsung.

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Completely agree. I simply don't see anything that distinguishes the phone from the competition.

Sam Posten said:

Here's the thing, the Fire Phone (like the Fire tablets) are "Exit through the gift shop" except you never leave. You enter the gift shop and stay there. Most people expected that meant that Amazon would get creative with the costs, subsidizing the phone more or dropping data prices etc. Giving a free year of prime seems backwards in that respect.

Click to expand...

This announcement does nothing to entice me for this very reason. If I wanted to buy into a closed system, I could get an iPhone. One of the major appeals of Android is the ability to get apps from various sources. I do not want to be locked into the Amazon app store -- it's the iTunes store model all over again.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EOE0WKQ/ref=fp_dp_auto_play?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=gateway-center-column&pf_rd_r=1T4PNJ5RXKZGDQP33D0Q&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1828037122&pf_rd_i=507846

I hadn't watched the keynote and the blog summaries of the phone have been confusing. I found Amazon's product page and watched their promo video to understand the basics.


Several new UI bits that need to be used to know if they're helpful: Faux 3D interface and tilt-to-scroll.
The Amazon search I already know is handy from the iPhone app. Having a more powerful version that does video and music as well would be helpful.
Amazon Mayday looks amazing. If it works as advertised, that seems like a device seller for their whole lineup.

And the laughable: tilt controls in my snowboarding game has me moving [my wrist] far more than ever before playing mobile games.

Early reviews are not kind. It's not that it sucks it's that there is no reason to choose this over any existing Android or iPhone models and with new iPhones soon to launch it will be even worse off.http://recode.net/2014/07/22/can-the-amazon-fire-smartphone-take-on-iphone-and-samsung/

Ouch, ouch.http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/07/24/fire-phone-the-vergeOuchhttp://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/07/23/manjoo-fire-phone

Terrific video review which really shows the dynamic perspective off for the first time that I have seen:http://parade.condenast.com/60998/parade/6-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-song-god-bless-america/As impressive as that is, the rest of the phone seems to be 'meh' in most cases and a near disaster in others.

I bet it's less than that and most of those are employees and free giveaways:http://www.macgasm.net/2014/08/26/35000-fire-phones-thats-all-amazon-could-have-sold/

Whoooopsie:
http://recode.net/2014/10/23/amazon-takes-170-million-writedown-on-weak-fire-phone-sales/

I wonder how much all the phone branded packing tape cost?

Heads roll over Fire failure, but hardware development accelerates?
http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/5/7494185/amazon-jeff-bezos-shuffles-its-hardware-lab-126-after-fire-phone

I know no one with a fire phone.

I kinda liked the phone after watching the presentation but, it just seemed to me they were trying to run a closed system, kind of like Apple so I passed.