Amazon has announced the much rumored fire phone in the US. It will be available at a price of USD 199 with an at&t service plan for 2 years. The unlocked version of the phone is priced at USD 649. Note that these prices are for the 32 GB variants of the phone. This pricing is part of amazon’s aggressive campaign to drive sales of the phone. In addition to the above pricing, amazon is also offering a full year of amazon prime membership when you purchase the phone (existing prime users get their membership extended by one year).
The phone runs on Amazon’s android based Fire OS version 3.5 and offers some really innovative features which will surely entice a lot of users:
Dynamic Perspective
This feature gives an immersive user experience to the user enabling them to tilt, auto-scroll, swivel, and peek to navigate menus and access shortcuts with one hand. For example – When you are reading a long email, just tilt the phone to automatically scroll the content. Precise sensors will help you control the scroll speed & direction.
Firefly
This is like Google Goggles. This feature uses the phone’s camera to identify text, music, pictures & products sold on amazon.com. Just point your phone and press the firefly button to let the phone give you options about the object you are seeing.
Mayday
This is going to be a big hit. The dedicated Mayday button on the phone lets you connect with an amazon expert via live video (one sided – they won’t be able to see you). This service is totally free 24×7 365 days a year. Amazon’s goal is to respond to a Mayday request within 15 seconds. In addition to troubleshooting your issues, the amazon expert will also be remotely able to control your phone to do the task for you. They will also have the ability to draw on your screen to guide you what to do. If this feature works as promised, it might just bring a revolution to customer care.
In addition to the above features, the phone boasts of 4.7’’ HD LCD display & a 13MP advanced camera system with 1080p video recording, optical image stabilization and free unlimited photo storage in the amazon cloud. The phone is powered by a 2.2 Ghz quad core processor and comes with a Dolby powered audio engine & flat cable magnetic tangle free ear buds.
The fire phone is available for pre order on amazon.com in 32GB and 64GB variants and ships on July 25 in the US.
