Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Fire Phone Reviews: Solid But Overly Ambitious
An anonymous reader writes: Amazon's Fire Phone launches later this week, and the reviews have started to come in. The hardware: "There's nothing terribly special about the Fire Phone's hardware, but there's very little to turn you off either." "The nice-looking IPS display in the Fire Phone gets bright enough for outdoor viewing, and it has nice viewing angles—a necessity for a phone that's meant to be tilted around and looked at from every which way." "An indistinct slab of glass and plastic, the Fire Phone looks more like a minimalist prototype than a finished product."
Software: "Firefly can recognize lots of things, but it's incredibly, hilariously inconsistent." "Firefly is the one Fire Phone feature you'll want on any phone you're currently using. Let's hope that it gets enough developer support that it isn't just a link to Amazon's storefronts." "First, and to be absolutely clear, Dynamic Perspective will impress you the first time you see it, and Amazon is pretty good at showing it off. ... But if there's some cool, useful functionality to be had from super-aggressive, super-accurate face tracking, the Fire Phone doesn't have it." Conclusion: "Smartphones are for work, for life. They're not toys, they're tools. Amazon doesn't understand that, and the Fire Phone doesn't reflect it."
Software: "Firefly can recognize lots of things, but it's incredibly, hilariously inconsistent." "Firefly is the one Fire Phone feature you'll want on any phone you're currently using. Let's hope that it gets enough developer support that it isn't just a link to Amazon's storefronts." "First, and to be absolutely clear, Dynamic Perspective will impress you the first time you see it, and Amazon is pretty good at showing it off. ... But if there's some cool, useful functionality to be had from super-aggressive, super-accurate face tracking, the Fire Phone doesn't have it." Conclusion: "Smartphones are for work, for life. They're not toys, they're tools. Amazon doesn't understand that, and the Fire Phone doesn't reflect it."
A phone with fairly tepid specs being sold for a flagship price (and AT&T SIM-locked, only) supported by one largely useless gimmick and a dedicated 'buy stuff on amazon' button.
Where do I sign?
"Smartphones are for work, for life. They're not toys, they're tools."
Eh, if that were strictly the case, the market would be a lot different. Smartphones are a lot of things: tool, toy, fashion, entertainment.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Firefly can recognize lots of things, but it's incredibly, hilariously inconsistent." "Firefly is the one Fire Phone feature you'll want on any phone you're currently using.
Why would I want to have a software feature on the phone i"m currently using that is incredibly, hilariously inconsistent?
Had a Kindle I won at a work raffle. The Silk browser was such a huge bag of suck! And they won't let you install a different one. Oh sure, maybe there is a hack for it somewhere, but I couldn't be arsed to find one. I just bought a Nexus 7 and use the kindle to prop a window open. Wouldn't touch this phone on a bet..
On the plus side, at least it can't take the sky from you...