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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.
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.
...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.
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 $650 off-contract, which is common for high-end smartphones.
My enthusiasm is dead not because of the tech, but because of all the handcuffs that come with today's devices.
This stupid Amazon phone, for instance, only works on the AT&T network. WTF? AT&T is probably the worst of the bunch. That alone disqualifies it for me. The bit about it spamming me with Amazon ads doesn't help. I don't need a phone that tries to sell me stuff.
Other Android phones aren't much better; they're closed-source and don't get updates for more than a few months after they're released. CyanogenMod may be a good alternative here, but you have to select your phone carefully here since only a few select phones have good CM support.
Apple phones are the epitome of lock-in. And Windows phones are, well, Windows phones.
What I want is a well-made Android phone that runs CyanogenMod, has an easily-replaced battery and SD card, and works on T-mobile (at least until they get consumed by some shitty company like Verizon).
...the rest of their stuff?
If so, not only a "no thanks" but I would like to add a "I hope you die a flaming fiery death and nobody is stupid enough to buy you..."
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What I want is a well-made Android phone that runs CyanogenMod, has an easily-replaced battery and SD card, and works on T-mobile (at least until they get consumed by some shitty company like Verizon).
How about a Galaxy S4? That's what I'm running. I have a Sprint-branded model running on Verizon MVNO prepaid (only carrier around here - sounds like it's different where you live). I got mine from Amazon, as it happens - looks like they have a T-Mobile model too.
Mine's running 4.4.2 CM milestone, fully encrypted. 64GB SanDisk SDHC (make sure you do an aligned format under Linux) w/ Incipio Dual Pro case. Battery pops out on demand. Make sure you get Odin for Windows if you intend to install custom ROM's.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
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?
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.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
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.
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.
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.
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
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?
Schnapple
A walk down memory lane:
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.
I finally want a new kindle with a high-dpi e-ink display, everything else I could not give two fucks about.