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Amazon Lights Its Fire Smartphone
June 18, 2014 at 5:42 AM (PT)
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It's official: AMAZON just unveiled its new FIRE smartphone at a special press conference in SEATTLE, BGR reports. The first of several AMAZON smartphones, the FIRE "features a heavily customized version of ANDROID that is similar to the operating system on AMAZON’s KINDLE FIRE tablet lineup, and apps are made available through the company’s own AMAZON Appstore."
One of its main selling points is 3D appeal. The handset features a "unique combination of sensors and four front-facing cameras that track the user’s head in order to facilitate a variety of 3D effects and gesture controls. Pictures and other on-screen elements shift their position as the user’s head moves, creating a glasses-free 3D experience. Similar technology allows users to scroll, launch menus and display new information simply by tilting the phone."
The FIRE is powered by a quad-core 2.2GHz QUALCOMM SNAPDRAGON processor, features a 4.7-inch 720p HD display, has 2GB of RAM, dual stereo speakers, a 13-megapixel rear camera and front-facing camera for video chats.
The phone will undoubtedly offer AMAZON’s various Prime Video and Music offering, as well as dedicated KINDLE software for eBooks. It is backed by AMAZON's Mayday customer support team and also features Firefly, which scans barcodes on products that are in AMAZON’s store, and listens "to music or TV shows using technology similar to Shazam to recognize them and pull them up in AMAZON’s digital shop."
The AMAZON FIRE Phone will start at $199.99 on contract with 32GB of storage, and a 64GB version will be available for $299.99. Off contract, the phone will be priced in line with the iPHONE, starting at $650. With any purchase option, the phone includes 12 months of AMAZON Prime service for free. It will be available exclusively from AT&T in the U.S., and it will launch on JULY 25th.

