Tech

Amazon’s New Phone Is On Fire

Kate Patrick Contributor
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This new phone built by Amazon is on fire. At a special event today, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos revealed the Fire Phone, which supports Amazon apps like Netflix, HBO Go, Hulu Plus, ESPN and Amazon Prime.

The sleek new phone features Gorilla Glass 3, a rubberized frame, aluminum buttons and a 4.7” IPS LCD HD display.

Not only does the phone come with an app for Amazon Prime music and video streaming, but it also sports unlimited photo storage on the Amazon Cloud. The Fire Phone is the only smartphone to be installed with Mayday, a customer service app for users struggling to control their phone.

By tilting the phone, users can activate “auto scroll” and navigate their phone via wrist movement. Dynamic Perspective allows users to view objects from a 3D perspective, including maps, games, movies, pictures and products.

But the coolest newfangled feature on the Fire Phone is Firefly. This Amazon-exclusive app is described as a “visual recognition program” that scans objects and identifies them via the internet. Scan a book with Firefly, and it’ll pull up a webpage describing and pricing the product. Scan artwork, and Firefly will open a Wikipedia article about the piece. Firefly also listens to and identifies music, movies and food.

A correspondent for the Verge commented in a live feed, “Bezos is really hitting hard with the importance of the Amazon ecosystem. This isn’t about hardware specs (or gimmicks), it’s about this being an Amazon phone with Amazon’s stuff.”

Bezos started off his presentation singing the praises of Amazon Prime – according to Bezos’ graph, membership has grown “exponentially” since 2011. Furthermore, Bezos said, Amazon has been #1 in the American Customer Satisfaction Index for the past four years and running.

“If you build a great service for one customer, you get millions,” Bezos said. “Amazon Prime brings so much joy to the world.”

On Amazon, the Fire Phone is offered exclusively through AT&T for $199 and comes with 12 months of free Amazon Prime. Without the AT&T service plan, the phone runs for $649.

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Tags : amazon
Kate Patrick