Amazon Announces 'Fire Phone'

Amazon has unveiled the Fire Phone. It runs a modified version of Android, and it will launch exclusively for AT&T's network. The screen is a 4.7" IPS LCD (they tested from 4.3" to 5.5", and decided 4.7" worked best for single-hand use), with an emphasis on brightness. It runs on a quad-core 2.2GHz processor with 2GB of RAM, and an Adreno 330 GPU. It has a rear-facing, 13-megapixel camera using an f/2.0 five-element lens with image stabilization. There's a dedicated physical button on the side of the phone that will turn it on and put it into camera mode when pressed. The phone comes with dual stereo speakers that produce virtual surround sound. Amazon wants the phone to be distinctive for its ability to provide video content, both from a hardware and software perspective.

The Fire Phone runs Mayday, Amazon's live tech support service for devices. They also demonstrated Firefly, software that recognizes physical objects using the phone's camera, as well as TV shows and songs it hears. It runs quickly, often identifying things in less than a second (and it pulls up an Amazon product listing, of course). It can even recognize art. Firefly has its own dedicated physical button on the phone, and Amazon is providing a Firefly SDK to third parties who want to develop with it. Another major feature of the Fire Phone is what Amazon calls "dynamic perspective." Using multiple front-facing cameras, the phone tracks the position of a user's head, and uses that to slightly adjust what's displayed on the screen so content is easier to see from the new angle. It allows for gesture control of the phone — for example, you can tilt the phone to scroll a web page or move your head slightly look around a 2-D stadium image when browsing for available seats. Putting your thumb on the screen acts like a mute button for the head tracking, so it isn't confused when you look up from the screen or turn your head to talk to somebody. It's an impressive piece of software, and they've made an SDK available for it.

Comments

Perhaps not the best name

[Anonymous Coward]

...for any device that has batteries inside it. All you need is one faulty batch, and this is quickly confirmed as the phone that burns people's hands off.

Re:Perhaps not the best name

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps one of the buttons can be set to directly call the Fire Dept.

Re:Perhaps not the best name

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they should have called it the Phire Phone

Re:Perhaps not the best name

[ArcadeMan]

At least it's not a new phone from Sony themselves.

Re:Perhaps not the best name

[tooslickvan]

Actually, Fire Phone is a great name the phone because if it catches fire but with a battery defect that causes it to catch on fire it will be too difficult to write headlines like Amazon CEO fired for Fire Phone fires that no one will be fired since no one will understand what's going on.

Re:Perhaps not the best name

[dtmos]

Yeah, "halt and catch fire" has a new meaning when the device has a lithium battery.

Re:Perhaps not the best name

[neilo_1701D]

Perhaps one of the buttons can be set to directly call the Fire Dept.

Mayday, perhaps?

Re:Perhaps not the best name

[steelfood]

It's probably not the best name for any device.

I can see people going to a Fire Phone sale thinking they were going to get phones at a heavy discount. And you could describe early adopters of this phone as having caught onto fire.

It's just a bad name in general.

Re: Perhaps not the best name

[Anonymous Coward]

Here, take a Popsicle, young boy, sit down and shut up. And get off my lawn.

Stupid trolls.

Re:Perhaps not the best name

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably easier to remember than 0118 999 881 999 119 7253.

Re: Perhaps not the best name

[johnsnails]

No its not... Haven't you seen IT Crowd

Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too late?

[CRCulver]

I loved my Nokia N900 phone (sadly lost somewhere in the wilderness of Africa), and I was long looking forward to the Neo900 project that would give me a slightly upgraded device with the same hackability and (for privacy fanatics) cell modem walled off from device RAM. But every time I read a new phone announcement, like this Amazon one, my enthusiasm wanes. Even lower-end phones have increasingly fine resolution and RAM, while the Neo900 looks antiquated with its 3.5" TFT, 800x480 screen and paltry 1GB RAM. Mass production has been pushed back to Q4 2014, and will seem even more of a dinosaur once it's finally released.

It's sad that the only real chance for a nerd-friendly, hackable phone (Jolla is not open in some key respects) missed the boat.

prices

[Anonymous Coward]

According to AT&T's site, the phone will cost $199 with a two-year contract for a 32GB device and $299 for a 64GB device. The phone will cost $650 off-contract, which is common for high-end smartphones.

Re:prices

[jayveekay]

None of the top-100 off-contract smartphones on Amazon.com are more than $250. I'm sure there are off-contract phones that cost $650+, but not a lot of people are buying them on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sel...

Re:prices

[kamapuaa]

but not a lot of people are buying them on Amazon

Yup. The top two selling phones are Windows, so obviously Amazon top-100 sellers are not representative of larger trends in the marketplace.

Re:prices

[tooslickvan]

It seems like Amazon equates off-contract with prepaid. Try searching for unlocked phones and the Galaxy S5 ($589) is number 6 on the top sellers. http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sel...

Re:prices

[radarskiy]

The off-contract Fire Phone is still locked to ATT.

Re:prices

[tysonedwards]

The phone has *the same* specs as the OnePlus One, minus the head tracking camera. The OnePlus One costs $299 *off contract* while the Fire Phone costs $649 off contract. Are the head tracking cameras on the front are worth $350 extra versus an otherwise identically specced phone from a company that is actually turning a profit? The "value add apps" on the Fire Phone would seem more like an avenue for trimming margin rather than adding it, since they exist solely to sell you more things through Amazon.

Re:prices

[swv3752]

Yeah, but I am fairly certain one will be able to buy an Amazon Fire Phone, unless one is really lucky at begging, one cannot buy a Oneplus One.

Re:prices

[Albanach]

I wonder if this price is more about maintaining AT&T exclusivity than being a real reflection of the phone cost. Still, I think the contract requirement while being tied to a single network is going to be a deal breaker.

Re:prices

[Shirley Marquez]

Do we have confirmation of that? Amazon is marketing it as an AT&T-exclusive device but I haven't seen any statements on whether the no-contract version is carrier locked. And interestingly, the Fire Phone includes AWS band coverage, which is unnecessary for the AT&T network but is needed for full use on T-Mobile US.

Sounds cool except for ATT

[drinkypoo]

Can't wait for the phones to be available used. Well, yes, yes I can wait, especially until I hear whether there's going to be a uSD slot

Re:Sounds cool except for ATT

[nmr_andrew]

Well, let's see, the AT&T contract price will be $199 for 32 GB and $299 for 64 GB. I just recently bought a class 10 32 GB uSD card from a reputable manufacturer for <$20 delivered. I think you have your answer if you read between the lines.

Holy crap that's expensive

[timeOday]

According to Amazon's website, the phone will range from $649 to $749 with an AT&T contract and will be available starting July 25.

cite. Even if that's a misprint and that's the price without a contract, that is WAY too much money!

It is amazing how much phone you can get for $100 now - GPS, decently high-res screen, MicroSD slot. If you ask me the movement is towards off-contract phones that provide a decent value, and $749 phones are going the way of the $3500 PC.

Re:Holy crap that's expensive

[ArcadeMan]

What's funny is that for a lot of us, our first PC probably cost around 3500$ back in the day and now most people think the Mac Pro is a really expensive computer.

Re:Holy crap that's expensive

[jbolden]

Once you have several phones the cost of an on-contract phone is $40 including $17 (though usually closer to $20+) in subsidy i.e. only really about $18-23 on contract + $5g for extra data. The off contract prices in the USA aren't close to that low.

For an individual off contract makes a lot of sense but once you are buying 2, 3, 4 the on-contract experience is just too good.

Re:Holy crap that's expensive

[kamapuaa]

A lot of people spend a lot of time on their phone. Maybe 30 minutes or more. If your phone lasts you a couple years, paying a dollar a day for a phone that is (and let's be honest) substantially better is probably worth it.

If you don't use your cell except for emergency phone calls, yeah what the hell, get whatever's cheapest.

Re:Holy crap that's expensive

[Charliemopps]

What's funny is that for a lot of us, our first PC probably cost around 3500$ back in the day and now most people think the Mac Pro is a really expensive computer.

That's true. But when I bought my first computer, there wasn't one sitting next to it for $200.

Re:Holy crap that's expensive

[timeOday]

Well, I tossed out the figure of $100 is pretty low, but even an LG G2 is right about half that. Then again, if you're resigned to being on contract with AT&T, I guess it makes sense to go with the phone that gets the biggest subsidy.

Re:Holy crap that's expensive

[Charliemopps]

A lot of people spend a lot of time on their phone. Maybe 30 minutes or more. If your phone lasts you a couple years, paying a dollar a day for a phone that is (and let's be honest) substantially better is probably worth it.

If you don't use your cell except for emergency phone calls, yeah what the hell, get whatever's cheapest.

If we're actually going to use logic on this... You're likely to drop/break that phone in the first 6 months. We either need more durable phones are cheaper phones. Less durable, more expensive phones are definitely the wrong direction. I had a Chinese phone for a while that was waterproof, shock proof, dual sims, etc... I loved that phone but it only worked on 1 US carrier and they dont have service where I live now.

Re:Holy crap that's expensive

[kamapuaa]

$400 LG G2s are nowhere near as good as a $650 Galaxy S5, though. I can't tell strangers how to spend their money, but personally most people I know, and myself, use their cell phone enough that it's worth spending an extra $250 spread out over the course of two years.

And whether you have a 2-year contract or not is basically not a factor, my wife and I don't, and it seems T-Mobile and AT&T have both made monthly plans the focus of their marketing. I just said 2 years because that makes it about a dollar/day and sounds like a reasonable length of time to hold on to a phone.

Re:Holy crap that's expensive

[kamapuaa]

If we're actually going to use logic on this... You're likely to drop/break that phone in the first 6 months.

I've never broken a phone. If 6 months was the expected lifetime, I'd pay extra for some kind of insurance plan.

Chinese phones work on unlocked GSM and work fine on AT&T, TMobile, or all the various cheap monthly plan services.

Re:Holy crap that's expensive

[Em Adespoton]

A walk down memory lane:

• Apple Lisa: January 19, 1983: US$9,995
  Macintosh 128k: January 24, 1984: US$2,495
  Macintosh 512k: September 10, 1984: US$2,795
  Macintosh XL: January 1, 1985: US$3,995
  Macintosh Plus: January 16, 1986: US$2,599
  Macintosh 512Ke: April 14, 1986: US$2,000
  Macintosh SE: March 2, 1987: US$2,900 (dual floppy) US$3,900 (with 20 MB hard drive)
  Macintosh II: March 2, 1987: US$5,500
  Macintosh IIx: September 19, 1988: US$7,800
  Macintosh SE/30: January 19, 1989: US$6,500
  Macintosh IIcx: March 7, 1989: US$5,369
  Macintosh IIci: September 20, 1989: US$6,269
  Macintosh IIfx: March 19, 1990: US$9,900
  Macintosh Classic: October 15, 1990: US$999
  Macintosh IIsi: October 15, 1990: US$2,999
  Macintosh LC: October 15, 1990: USUS$2,500 (plus monitor)
  Macintosh Portable: February 11, 1991: US$6,500
  Macintosh Classic II: October 21, 1991 (MCII): US$1,900
  Powerbook 100: October 21, 1991: US$2,500
  PowerBook 140: October 21, 1991: US$2,900
  PowerBook 170: October 21, 1991: US$4,600
  Macintosh Quadra 700: October 21, 1991: US$5,700
  Macintosh Quadra 900: October 21, 1991: US$8,500
  Macintosh LCII: March 1992: USUS$1,400 (plus monitor)
  Powerbook 145-180 + Duos: October 19, 1992: US$2,150 - USUS$3,870
  Macintosh IIvx: October 19, 1992: US$2,950
  Macintosh IIvi: October 19, 1992: US$3,000
  Color Classic: February 10, 1993: US$1,400
  Macintosh LCII: February 10, 1993: USUS$1,350 (plus monitor)
  Color Classic II: October 1, 1993: US$1,400
  Too many to list: 1993: US$900 - US$5,900

I figured that would provide a useful summary of how prices on Macs were trending 30-20 years ago. These prices aren't adjusting for inflation.
Notable standouts: Quadra 605 in 1993 for $900 (sans monitor) and Mac Classic in 1990 for $999 - the two dips below $1,000 for Apple.
So compare prices:
All-in-one 1994: $1200-$1700
All-in-one 2014: $1099-$2199
Laptop 1994: $1450-$5200
Laptop 2014: $899-$2799
Desktop 1994: $1280-$6700
Desktop 2014: $2999-$6999
Handheld Device 1994: $500-$600
Handheld Device 2014: $229-$929

Summary: more range/options for all-in-one, laptop and handhelds today, less for desktop.

Re:Holy crap that's expensive

[Em Adespoton]

Silly me; forgot the Mini. Change to this:
Desktop 1994: $1280-$6700
Destop 2014: $599-$6999 ...and desktop has more range/options now too.

Re: Holy crap that's expensive

[the_humeister]

How so? LG G2 has a similar processor as the S5 (Snapdragon 800 vs 801) but a larger screen and similar camera. Plus all carrier variants of the G2 are rootable now. That's not the case for the S5.

Re: Holy crap that's expensive

[kamapuaa]

S5 is smaller, better screen (even if it's .1" smaller), better camera, faster, has a micro SD slot, replaceable batter better build quality (my wife recently got the S5 over the similar Nexus 5). Water resistance is kind of cool, I've heard of people destroying their phones that way.

Not that the G2 is a crap phone, I just think something you spend a lot of time on is probably worth spending an extra $.35/day or whatever that works out to.

Re:Holy crap that's expensive

[Rich0]

A lot of people spend a lot of time on their phone. Maybe 30 minutes or more. If your phone lasts you a couple years, paying a dollar a day for a phone that is (and let's be honest) substantially better is probably worth it.

I get the argument if you're getting something for it.

However, I think a phone needs to be the very best on the market to command that kind of price. That should be a no-compromise price. From what I've seen about the Fire, it isn't THAT good.

I don't care if the Nexus 5 doesn't have the nicest camera of any phone, because it is 60% of the price of those other phones. If they wanted $700 for a Nexus 5, then I'd be much more critical of any flaw, though I wouldn't expect the camera to be as nice as what I'd get if I spent $700 on a dedicated camera.

Re:Holy crap that's expensive

[rochrist]

Also the iMac. The current iMacs are pretty attractively priced. You can get the 27 inch one with a 3.2gHz i5 for $1349.00. When you take into account the 27 inch monitor, that's not a bad price.

Re:Holy crap that's expensive

[rochrist]

Sorry, didn't notice you included an all-on-one catagory. :)

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[Grishnakh]

My enthusiasm is dead not because of the tech, but because of all the handcuffs that come with today's devices.

This stupid Amazon phone, for instance, only works on the AT&T network. WTF? AT&T is probably the worst of the bunch. That alone disqualifies it for me. The bit about it spamming me with Amazon ads doesn't help. I don't need a phone that tries to sell me stuff.

Other Android phones aren't much better; they're closed-source and don't get updates for more than a few months after they're released. CyanogenMod may be a good alternative here, but you have to select your phone carefully here since only a few select phones have good CM support.

Apple phones are the epitome of lock-in. And Windows phones are, well, Windows phones.

What I want is a well-made Android phone that runs CyanogenMod, has an easily-replaced battery and SD card, and works on T-mobile (at least until they get consumed by some shitty company like Verizon).

Is it locked to the Amazon app store like...

[Assmasher]

...the rest of their stuff?

If so, not only a "no thanks" but I would like to add a "I hope you die a flaming fiery death and nobody is stupid enough to buy you..."

Re:Is it locked to the Amazon app store like...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it is locked to the Amazon ecosystem. There is no access to Google Play, or anything else. The operating system is Fire OS, which is an incompatible fork of Android.

The phone is packed with proprietary software and DRM. There's no possibility of flashing your own Android image, (not to mention, a Free operating system like Replicant).

Here's yet another proprietary phone I'm not interested in.

Re:Is it locked to the Amazon app store like...

[sexconker]

Of course it is - they're running a heavily modified version of AOSP, not Android.
Even if Android and the Play store were free and open, Amazon wants you to buy shit from their own store, not Google's.

Re:Is it locked to the Amazon app store like...

[MindStalker]

That may have been true in their first release, but Fire devices have been able to incorporate Google Play for a while now. There as "Apps from unknown sources" option now. Though it still a little tricky to copy over the apx file.

http://www.gizmag.com/how-to-i...

Re:Is it locked to the Amazon app store like...

[Anonymous Coward]

The A in AOSP stands for...

Re:Is it locked to the Amazon app store like...

[GweeDo]

I assume the parent is actually meaning applications that use Google Play Services (http://developer.android.com/google/play-services/index.html). These will never work on any Fire product.

Re: Is it locked to the Amazon app store like...

[the_humeister]

There's always going to be a flaw such that a new ROM can be installed. It's just a matter if whether there are enough interested technical people to figure it out. The Kindle Fires are rootable and have Cyanogenmod ROMs.

Re:Is it locked to the Amazon app store like...

[farble1670]

sideloading an APK is not incorporating Google Play.

Re: Is it locked to the Amazon app store like...

[odie5533]

We want to discourage this type of behavior so we don't have to rely on hackers finding vulnerabilities.

Re: Is it locked to the Amazon app store like...

[the_humeister]

Get an HTC. That's what I did. The HTC One M8 is a pretty solid phone. Or get a Nexus phone or the OnePlus One.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[Anonymous Coward]

That shitty company will be Sprint, you're welcome.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/30/5669598/sprint-will-try-to-buy-tmobile-in-june-or-july

AT&T exclusive?

[ArcadeMan]

So much for being free of old-tech companies. I guess the "free to use" phone will have to come from Google.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[jbolden]

What's wrong with the Google Nexus as a nerd-friendly hackable phone?

"Fire Phone", "Mayday service"

[JoeyRox]

Is it a smartphone or a boat flare?

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[thaylin]

http://bgr.com/2014/06/16/spri...

Kindle, ... fire ... next in line is:

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Inferno. Unfortunately the next product in line to take that brand name happens to be a line of refrigerators.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[Ralph Wiggam]

Estimated price is between $800 and $1150. For a phone with an 800x480 screen? Seriously?

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[drinkypoo]

What's wrong with the Google Nexus as a nerd-friendly hackable phone?

Lack of a card slot and battery door. Otherwise nothing.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[bill_mcgonigle]

What I want is a well-made Android phone that runs CyanogenMod, has an easily-replaced battery and SD card, and works on T-mobile (at least until they get consumed by some shitty company like Verizon).

How about a Galaxy S4? That's what I'm running. I have a Sprint-branded model running on Verizon MVNO prepaid (only carrier around here - sounds like it's different where you live). I got mine from Amazon, as it happens - looks like they have a T-Mobile model too.

Mine's running 4.4.2 CM milestone, fully encrypted. 64GB SanDisk SDHC (make sure you do an aligned format under Linux) w/ Incipio Dual Pro case. Battery pops out on demand. Make sure you get Odin for Windows if you intend to install custom ROM's.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[Grishnakh]

Oh right, that's what I was thinking of.

Anyway, I can only hope the deal falls through for some reason. The state of telecom in this country is simply horrible, and another merger will only make it worse.

Resolution is 1280x720

[sexconker]

This thing should fail and fail hard.

AT&T only.
1280x720 resolution.
$649 or ridiculous contracts.
No external sd support.
Not real Android.
No Google Play store or Google apps.
Weakly specced.
Nonstop monitoring and control by Amazon.

It's going to sell like fucking hotcakes, isn't it?

Re:Resolution is 1280x720

[Charliemopps]

Never underestimate the stupidity of the general public.

Re:Resolution is 1280x720

[squiggleslash]

Not sure all of your criticisms are fair, though I agree generally it's ridiculously expensive and locks the user into bad things, like AT&T. Other items on your list that I agree are bad are issues you and I are in a minority with - SD card support, for example.

To be fair though there are some interesting UI innovations there. I'd be interested to see if other phone companies follow suit.

And I hope they weren't stupid enough to give it a glossy screen if the UI is based on creating an optimal view based upon how the phone is tilted.

Re:Resolution is 1280x720

[jellomizer]

I don't think it will sell to well. The Kindle Fire had the advantage that it was cheap... This isn't really that cheap.
Apple iPhone or the Samsung Galaxy looks sharp. This just looks like generic Smart phone.

The feature that is has is cool for a few seconds then you get sick of them.

Re:Resolution is 1280x720

[tapi0]

Let me help you out...

**

This thing should *sell* and *sell* hard.

AT&T only. (Amazon customers know they're using the same provider that supports kindle data, so are assured that Amazon know that their partner will deliver a good service)
1280x720 resolution. (matches the films resolution that they'll get from Prime)
$649 or ridiculous contracts. (includes Prime ! Yay! ....And 24hr direct support)
No external sd support. (important to an amazon customer?)
Not real Android. (important to an amazon customer?)
No Google Play store or Google apps. (But has an app store that already provides thousands of apps for kindle and *other* phones and tablets)
Weakly specced. (important to an amazon customer? no, really - look at the video, it shows it *doing stuff* and that's all that matters, not your gigabitz and mega hurts)
Nonstop monitoring and control by Amazon. (*important* to the amazon customer - as before, it *works* and when it doesn't, or I don't know how to make it work then there's that friendly Amazon to the rescue)

It's going to sell like fucking hotcakes, isn't it?
*yes*

Don't underestimate how most of the things you or I may see as a negative, are actually welcomed by others (Oh..... "and it's 3D!!! ")

Re:Resolution is 1280x720

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

iPhone has similar pixel density, actually.

But the CPU and RAM specs are nearly meaningless when considering that the OSes that run on top of them are wildly different, and the CPUs themselves are also likely to be different. I don't think this is running the 64 bit variant of the Snapdragon 800 CPU either. That's not to say that Apple couldn't stand to have an iOS device with more than 1GB of ram though.

In real world benchmarks the A7 still holds its own against existing Snapdragon 800 powered devices and it's nearly a year old at this point with half the ram.

So at this point, specs are becoming less and less meaningful and software is becoming more and more critical.

Re:Resolution is 1280x720

[Albanach]

1280x720 resolution on a 4.7" screen is plenty.

My Moto X and Nexus 4 are both clear. of course they're both half the price of Amazon's offering.

Re:Resolution is 1280x720

[danbob999]

That's because no benchmark is using any significant amount of RAM. Any benchmark using just 1.5GB RAM would make the iPhone rank near the bottom. Most CPU benchmarks are actually javascript benchmarks and tells more about the software (javascript engine) than the performance of the CPU. Also, there is nothing wrong with releasing a phone with low specs. But the price should be lower. The Moto G is an excellent phone for the price. The Fire Phone shouldn't be more expensive than the Nexus 5 to begin with.

Re:Resolution is 1280x720

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Yeah, but in the real world specs matter less and less.

We also don't know what Amazon's paying for their parts, or what their expected profit margins are. If they're finally looking to make money off of ... well anything at this point, then $650 price point seems about right.

Re:Resolution is 1280x720

[Barlo_Mung_42]

On one hand you want Google Play store and Google apps but on the other you don't want Nonstop monitoring.

hmm.

Re:Resolution is 1280x720

[Shirley Marquez]

The 64 bit Snapdragon 808 and 810 are not yet available, and aren't expected until 2015. The lower end 64 bit Snapdragon processors (410, 610, and 615) are expected later this year, but I don't expect them to cause a lot of excitement because they don't match the performance of the 32 bit 800 and 805.

I am surprised by the pricing, especially given that it's an Amazon-captive device. At the price point of the Fire Phone it should have a Snapdragon 805, a 1080p display, and 3GB RAM; that's the current level for a state of the art Android smartphone. At its actual spec level it should be about $150 cheaper.

Re:Resolution is 1280x720

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

That's really hard to say. If Amazon's done anything under the hood to Android, then, maybe not. I'm guessing not bloody likely, but...

Faster SOC, more RAM and bigger display also have the huge drawback of sucking power. What's odd is that this thing has 1.5 times the mAh(2400 mAh vs 1560) than the iPhone 5S but the battery life isn't matching. Same with the Galaxy S5 at 2800 mAh.

I guess that's the price of having a giant display, a bunch of cores and gobs of RAM.

$750??? HAHAHAHAH!!!

[EmagGeek]

Fuck you, Amazon. I'm not paying $750 for your spyware-ridden piece of garbage.

Re:$750??? HAHAHAHAH!!!

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

$649 for the base one, the same as basically all other flagship smart phones... and other Android phones aren't spyware ridden?

Jeff, is that you?

Re:$750??? HAHAHAHAH!!!

[farble1670]

$649 for the base one, the same as basically all other flagship smart phones...

no flagship phone released in the last year has 1280x700-ish resolution.

regardless. you can't be a newcomer and expect people to pay the price that they're paying for established, loved brands. it's the same mistake made early on by android tablet makers. they released tablets that cost as much as an iPad. however, when people want an iPad, they're going to by an iPad if everything else is about equal (price, etc). the newcomer has to lure you in with lower prices or massively better specs (which is almost impossible).

Re:VIDEO???

[Russ1642]

I'm surprised AOL doesn't have a link on their homepage for you to click on. Remember, 'clicking' means left mouse button and 'right-clicking' is the right mouse button.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[CRCulver]

Unless I am mistaken (and please point me to a reference if so, I can't find one), GNU/Linux can only run in a chroot environment on recent Google Nexus phones, on top of CyanogenMod. The N900 booted into the same desktop Linux environment one is used to from one's PC without almost no tweaking.

Furthermore, I assume that the Nexus talks to its cell modem through shared memory, whereas the Neo900 promised to separate the modem from the rest of the system for the sake of security.

Nooooo... $199 on contract.

[jpellino]

The higher numbers are for without a contract. Dynamic perspective is Apple's current feature plus flagpole-sitting. Firefly is nice, it's their version of Delicious Library plus Shazam plus ABC, "It even tells you where to buy it!" Really? Guess where it's going to tell you to buy it... That one handed tilt feature will come in very handy while walking or being the passenger in a vehicle. Repurpose it as a speed reading app.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[Grishnakh]

Thanks, I'll check it out. I'd like to just keep my HTC Sensation 4G, but it doesn't seem to be that well supported by CM.

Hard to see the point

[DrXym]

When shopping for phones I always look for one which runs a fork of Android, which is locked into Amazon services, which is tied to a phone provider and doesn't cost any less than a regular unencumbered phone.

Re:Hard to see the point

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

I agree. The AT&T exclusivity is particularly unappealing. Does Amazon think they have something desirable here? Where is the hook that makes the exclusivity worth it? It's hard to fathom what they are thinking.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[NatasRevol]

Wait, the fact that it's a $200+ physical shopping app with monthly charges doesn't bother you?

Re: wi-fi

[Russ1642]

Microsoft says you shouldn't need ac. Just roll down the window.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[Grishnakh]

Did you miss this line? "I don't need a phone that tries to sell me stuff."

Besides, you're not paying to be sold stuff, you're paying for a phone and the other functionality that comes with that. But the shopping stuff is an add-on that spoils the utility of the device IMO.

Still, I wonder how good the hardware is. If the phone is being subsidized by Amazon, and if CyanogenMod can make a new firmware for it (which doesn't have any shopping stuff or other crapware), then it might be worth it. Of course, Amazon probably wouldn't like that too much.

This reminds me of the ROKR E1

[sirwired]

This phone strongly reminds me of the Motorola ROKR, a pre-iPhone device whose sole redeeming quality, vs. any other dumbphone of the time, was that it could play tracks you downloaded from iTunes and manually transferred to the phone over USB 1.0. It would only accept 100 songs and/or 1GB of files, whichever limit you hit first. It wouldn't play MP3's.

Amazon has released a phone that has nothing to distinguish itself from the competition other than the fact it is hog-tied to the Amazon ecosystem. It's does not have any particularly interesting features that could not be implemented in pure software, and the price is nothing to write home about either.

I don't see any reason why anybody would purchase this over the Moto G LTE, or any number of other smartphones that are available for a heckava lot less money. If you really don't mind being tied to a contract, there are better phones for less than the $200 they want.

Brick and Mortar stores are going to love this

[robstout]

Thank you Amazon for making it that much easier to browse items at my local Best Buy, and then purchase from amazon. I'm wondering how many stores will be willing to carry this if/when it becomes more widely available.

Re:Brick and Mortar stores are going to love this

[Russ1642]

How exactly would this phone make it any easier?

Re:Brick and Mortar stores are going to love this

[robstout]

Based on TFS, the phone is running a program that identifies devices, and then pops up amazon's part number, etc. Sounds like Shazaam, but for stuff, instead of music.

Re:Brick and Mortar stores are going to love this

[Russ1642]

Nothing they can't put in a normal app.

Re:Brick and Mortar stores are going to love this

[praxis]

Nothing they can't put in a normal app.

That's true, but just because they could does not mean they (or someone else) will. My reading of the announcement is that Amazon feel this is a selling point.

Re:Brick and Mortar stores are going to love this

[Shirley Marquez]

Firefly takes it a step farther. The existing Amazon app lets you scan a bar code and buy. Firefly lets you take a picture of the THING ITSELF or its package and buy without needing to scan the bar code. (It will be interesting to see how well that works.) Making that kind of recognition work probably requires the combination of a high end sensor and image stabilization that are featured in the Fire Phone; there are a few other devices that can match that but the average smartphone cannot.

Fanboys..

[sqorbit]

The Kindle Fire seems to have fans just like Apple. While not nearly coming close to Apple fans numbers they are just as set in their ways. It will sell to those fans. The media/books/apps they suck down from the Amazon store and the shopping they do with Prime it should do well enough to stick around as a niche product.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[SpzToid]

Have you considered a Fairphone to meet your specifications, which among many other redeeming qualities prides itself on its repairability, which includes being able to root your own phone whenever you want? So you can install CyanogenMod, or perhaps Jolla's Sailfish OS (that can also run Droid apps). It has a *lot* going for it, especially its designer's goal of staying out of the scrap heap as long as possible. About the only downside is the one attribute they didn't prioritize by design is being the fastest phone with the latest technology; but you must also consider the upsides when doing your own research to see if this is a good phone for you.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06...

https://www.fairphone.com/

It uses a GSM SIM card, so it'll work on T-mobile worldwide as you require. I've held one and it's plenty classy in the hand.

Incredibly HOT product name

[WaffleMonster]

No doubt whoever came up with the name "fire phone" will continue to enjoy a long and prosperous career at amazon long after typing "fire phone" into Google and clicking image search.

Re:Incredibly HOT product name

[Shirley Marquez]

There have been lots of jokes about the name, but it is consistent with Amazon's branding of other products. They already have the Kindle Fire and the Fire TV.

Maybe this is for our parents?

[Schnapple]

The Fire Phone runs Mayday, Amazon's live tech support service for devices.

I haven't experienced it myself but when I see the Amazon Kindle Fire commercials where they demonstrate you can talk to a live Amazon person to help you use your tablet, my first thought was "that would be great for my parents", especially since it would lessen the number of calls I would get from them on how to do something with their technology device du jour.

You would think that something locked down like an iOS device wouldn't lend itself to needing this kind of tech support help, but in certain areas - especially phone calls - there's a certain level of resistance to technology complexity with the older crowd. It sounds like I'm being mean with regards to age but I have known several older people over the last few years who went out and bought an iPhone because it was the new shiny thing and then took it back because they couldn't figure out how to use it or didn't like how complicated it made things. As much as it makes perfect sense to you and I that the phone is a more generalized computing device nowadays and wanting to make a phone call is basically launching a program, the older set knows that you used to just open the fucking thing and start dialing.

I'm not sure if the Fire Phone will make all that better (in particular I can almost guarantee my parents in particular would fucking hate the 3D screen thing) but I do think perhaps there's an untapped market out there for people who want a less-smartphone. After all, isn't that basically what "locked down" Android tablets like the Kindle Fire and the Nook are? Google, Apple and Microsoft are all trying to outdo each other on technical whiz-bang, and this entry from Amazon doesn't seem to impress the Slashdot crowd at all. Maybe this one is for our parents?

How is it weakly spec'd

[Sycraft-fu]

Specs look in line with other phones to me. The Note 3, which ran me like $700 (no contract), is 2.3Ghz quad core and an Adreno 330. So this seems pretty similar.

Only thing I see is the screen rez, but that really isn't that big a deal. The ultra high rez for phones thing is a little silly. Once you get around 300PPI or so, which this is, there really isn't any visual detail to be gained. Pixels are too small to be perceptible. So it is spec wanking to go higher and higher on small displays.

Criticizing the lock-in is very valid, but the price and specs seem in line with the other stuff out there.

Re:How is it weakly spec'd

[sexconker]

The Note 3 has a 1920x1080 screen (ruined by fucking pentile though), has a stylus, has a larger screen (obviously), runs real Android and comes with Google's apps and the Play store, has much better battery life, supports micro SD cards, supports all carriers and bands, and will have been on the market for 10 months (almost an eon in the mobile world) before Amazon's phone is in anyone's hands.
For the Fire Phone to be similar (yet obviously inferior) to a phone that's nearly a year older isn't a good thing.

I'm going to completely disagree on 1280x720 being enough. The jump from the Nexus 4 (1280x768) to the Nexus 5 (1920x1080) is strikingly obvious, despite the small increase in screen size (4.7 inches to 5 inches).

As if the Android market needed more fragmentation

[Begemot]

I hope this thing doesn't take off, or we'll have to test our apps on yet another device running a heavily polluted Android

Why get into the phone biz?

[Lawrence_Bird]

This is really all about their extra software. Why not just license it to phone mfgs?

Re:Why get into the phone biz?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

"People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware." - Alan Kay

Facebook tried that strategy and it failed miserably.

One could argue that Windows Phone and Android are living proof that this isn't a profitable strategy.

I'm not even joking about Android not being profitable for Google, or anyone else really.

Re:Why get into the phone biz?

[tepples]

For the same reason that the iPhone is currently the only brand of phone with Amazon Instant Video.

Dedicated camera button?

[kbahey]

There's a dedicated physical button on the side of the phone that will turn it on and put it into camera mode when pressed.

What?

I've had that since 2013 on my Sony Xperia ZL.
And even before that on the Sony Xperia Arc.
And even before that on the Sony Xperia X10 since 2011.

Poorly Priced

[brunes69]

Let's see.... either you pay $199 and get locked into an AT&T contract and then have to pay even more money to get your phone unlocked at the end of it, or you pay $349 and get a Nexus 5/6 and use it with any carrier you want. Oh and did I mention it also has access to the Play store?

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[BigBunion]

Amazon doesn't seem like the type of company to negotiate exclusive (restrictive) deals like this. I'd bet that they decided to use a GSM radio in the phone, which will work around the world. Verizon and Sprint use a CDMA network that pretty much only exists in the US. Sometimes we tend to forget that the US only makes up 5% of the world's population.

What are the rest of the specs?

[anchor_tag]

I stopped reading once I hit AT&T

don't use video when Roaming att will bill $15+meg

[Joe_Dragon]

don't use video when Roaming att will bill $15 + meg and no you can't unlock and use a local sim.

Re: Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too la

[the_humeister]

I ran into this issue since I'm on AT&T. Originally bought a Samsung Galaxy
  S 5 and promptly returned it because it's currently not rootable. So then I bought an HTC One M8 when I found out there's manufacturer support for rooting. You can also wait for the Cyanogemod Official phone (looks pretty nice too)

Who cars? Want Kindle!

[YoungManKlaus]

I finally want a new kindle with a high-dpi e-ink display, everything else I could not give two fucks about.

Re: Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too l

[the_humeister]

Oh, looks like Geohot figured out how to root the AT&T and Verizon S5s. Guess he gets the $18k bounty!

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[jbolden]

You just load a rootkit or just go into developer mode if you want pure root: http://trendblog.net/how-to-ro...

As for the configuration, its hackable. Load the OS configuration you want.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[serbanp]

Verizon and Sprint use a CDMA network that pretty much only exists in the US

Meet Japan, the 51st state...

GSM vs. CDMA2000

[tepples]

Chinese phones work on unlocked GSM and work fine on AT&T, TMobile, or all the various cheap monthly plan services.

That's fine for voice, but data is painful unless a phone can use the same UMTS or LTE frequency as AT&T or T-Mobile. And no, not "all the various cheap monthly plan services" work with "unlocked GSM". Sprint MVNOs in particular work with Sprint-blessed devices because Sprint uses some variant of CDMA2000 and will probably continue to do so until VoLTE matures. Besides, I get the impression that the only carrier that works in Charliemopps's neck of the woods is Verizon, another CDMA2000 carrier. Am I right?

Unknown sources

[tepples]

Yes, it is locked to the Amazon ecosystem. There is no access to Google Play, or anything else.

No access to Google Play I can understand. But if "anything else" is true, it'd be a departure from Amazon's previous Kindle Fire tablets that have one checkbox to allow installation of applications from unknown sources and another checkbox to allow installation of applications through a USB connection to a computer running Android Debug Bridge.

Re:Are they providing an SDK for Firefly?

[ubrgeek]

Yes, but they'll cancel it as soon as it gets popular.

Nexus hackable about as long as locked devices

[Rob Y.]

What's wrong with the Google Nexus as a nerd-friendly hackable phone?

Mostly nothing - except for the Nexus One, which got orphaned at gingerbread after 18 months (vaguely understandable, since it was underpowered) and the Galaxy Nexus, which got orphaned at about 2 years (which stinks, because it still has plenty of power).

I'm on the Nexus 4, hoping it doesn't meet a similar fate. This thing has plenty of life left in it, and if Google/LG went with components for which drivers become unavaliable at the next major Android update, I'm giving up...

Movies for Prime subscribers

[tepples]

As far as I can tell, the advantage of the Fire Phone over Android phones with Google Play is that the Fire Phone lets U.S. customers who already subscribe to Amazon Prime shipping watch movies without having to pay extra for Netflix or an iPod touch or iPhone.

Re:Movies for Prime subscribers

[Matheus]

I can already do this on my non-Amazon Android Phone... Amazon's pushing that pretty hard actually "Hey download this app and get new capabilities from your Prime account!"

Re:Movies for Prime subscribers

[tepples]

How? The only "compatible mobile devices" on this list are Kindle Fire tablets and Apple products.

Re:Movies for Prime subscribers

[Shirley Marquez]

You can only play Prime movies on older Android phones unless you jump through hoops. Amazon hasn't released a movie viewing app for stock Android; you have to use the player in your web browser, which means that you need Flash, and Flash is unsupported in Android versions after 4.1. You can get it on 4.2 or 4.3 by installing an alternate browser and sideloading the Flash APK. For KitKat you also need to get a hacked Flash APK because the standard one is incompatible with 4.4.

Once you've gone to all that trouble, you have a unstable way to play Prime movies. And it eats your battery life because it doesn't take full advantage of hardware video acceleration.

There is no good technical reason why Amazon couldn't release an Android app. They have released one for iOS, and doing one for Android should be even easier since Fire OS is based on Android. They don't do it because they want you to buy a Kindle Fire or a Fire Phone and be totally tied to their ecosystem, but they can't afford to ignore the huge iOS market and they probably can't convince Apple fans to come over to their platform no matter what Prime benefits they offer.

The alternative to Apple's Walled Garden

[Snufu]

Bezos' Walled Flea Market with Free Spyware

Let me guess...

[nospam007]

They have patented the one-click photo taking with that button and everybody else now has to use at least 2 clicks to take a picture.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[exomondo]

My enthusiasm is dead not because of the tech, but because of all the handcuffs that come with today's devices.

That's because people just want a phone that also has the ability to browse the web and run applications. If you are one of the few that want a phone without such "handcuffs" to be able to use it for other things then go with a Nexus phone.

Apple phones are the epitome of lock-in.

You aren't "locked in", don't be ridiculous. That is just the excuse of lazy people, if you want to change there is nothing stopping you from changing though oddly enough it's often geeks complaining that they are "locked in" so what exactly is it that you are having so much trouble that stops you from being able to change? What is keeping you "locked in"?

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[narcc]

Yeah, it could be that, but it's actually $650 off-contract.

Re:Why ex clusive?

[narcc]

Yeah, being an AT&T exclusive is exactly why Apple's iPhone failed.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[Grishnakh]

>I'm a geek, too, and I just want a phone that can browse and make phone calls.

Yeah, that'd be nice too, but (stock) Android is so unreliable it can't even do that very well. Almost every time I load the web browser on my phone, it crashes. On the second or third try, it'll work for a while. For many other tasks, it just hangs for 10-20 seconds with a blank screen before proceeding.

The whole reason I want an open-source phone is so I can remove all the crapware that the regular vendor-built Android software stack contains, and which is causing all these problems, not just so I can fiddle with it pointlessly. It's the same reason my wife's laptop runs Linux Mint: it "just works" and rarely has any kinds of problems, unlike Windows which it used to run.

Re:Why ex clusive?

[Concern]

Actually, now that you mention it, being AT&T exclusive pretty much is why Android is the world's most popular mobile OS and iOS is a minority operating system.

Meanwhile, is Amazon as good at this as Apple? Is it 2007, or 2014?

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is your problem. You represent ~0.0001% of the mobile phone market. Sorry, the economics aren't there to satisfy your needs.

Nevertheless, Samsung's new Z phone is based on Tizen, the spiritual successor to Meego, with plenty more to come.

Maybe the market isn't as committed to lockin as you think.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[drinkypoo]

What's wrong with the Google Nexus as a nerd-friendly hackable phone?Lack of a card slot and battery door. Otherwise nothing.

While I understand some people want the SDHC slot and a spare battery many of us use and have used Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 phones with no problems.

Way to completely fail to follow the conversation there, coward. I have an N4 and I even have a N7-2013 and the lack of a card slot is stupid and annoying in both cases. But then, I'm a nerd who hacks his Android devices. The lack of a card slot is unacceptable.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[JimSadler]

I wish Ebay would develop a similar product. I like to shop on Ebay and find Amazon a bit strange.

Image recognition fail

[Wowsers]

Try out the phones image recognition system, aim it at a politician, but it doesn't tell you how much it costs to buy the politician. So the phone needs more work.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[Ambiguous Puzuma]

I don't know about Nexus phones specifically, but unless the hardware is locked down you should be able to put Android in a chroot jail instead, with a proper GNU/Linux environment on the outside. Then in the Android world you can run a VNC client app, or ssh in a terminal app (with optional X server app), to break back out.

I got it working on my N900 substitute, a $200 "Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G" (SGH-T699), which has a great 5 row slide out keyboard to make up for its otherwise unremarkable (but still better than N900) hardware. There are still a lot of rough edges to smooth out--currently to direct audio to the headphone port I use a shell script with 9 amixer commands, for example--but I get the sense that this is just a matter of putting in more time tinkering.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[Grishnakh]

Yeah, I'd like to have one with the same features, but I wouldn't mind if it's twice as thick as an iPhone, if that means I get better performance and more battery life. And being able to install any OS is important too; then there would be community-supported OSes available.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[perryizgr8]

i wanna flash cm onto my s4, but i haven't because i don't wanna lose the gesture and hover features. are those implemented on cm?

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[perryizgr8]

Lack of microsd is simply unacceptable, imo. non-replaceable battery i might put up with. this is the main reason i bought an s4 and not an n5.

Re:wi-fi

[perryizgr8]

1 year old phones (gs4) support ac. look harder, man.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[Eunuchswear]

So you're more interested in buzzwords that freedom.

That's ok, you are mainstream.

I'm weird and I know it.

Re:Anyone else think Neo900 is too little, too lat

[Eunuchswear]

Is that supposed to be a reply to CRCulver's post?

He's lost enthusiasm for free (libre) phones, not handcuffed android thingies.