Amazon's First Smartphone Gets Mixed Reviews

After several years of speculation, Amazon has finally unveiled its first, very-own-branded smart phone: The Fire Phone.

With its obvious effort to stand apart from other powerhouses like Apple and Samsung, Amazon’s Fire Phone has drawn a lot of attention and mixed reviews from those who admire their innovation and creative business strategy, to those who find their ‘gimmicks’ to be personally offensive.

For example, the phone offers a supercharged scanner which you can use to scan and get information on, well, anything – from CD covers to books and TV shows – and the phone will tell you what it is and where to buy it. Some say Amazon’s true interest lies selling their products on their Prime membership purchasing platform.

One of the phone’s biggest bragging point, and one that seems to have a less-than-dazzling effect with some online reviewers, is the fact that it uses four, front-facing cameras to detect the angle of your head for a 3-D-like “Dynamic Display”. Users are able to scroll by tilting the phone as well.

One review, said Amazon gave up functionality, getting swept away by the magic and delight of new, dazzling technology.

How much appeal it actually draws form consumers could be limited by it’s price and carrier restrictions. For the time being, the Fire Phone is exclusively being offered by AT&T and retails at $650 or $199 with a two year contract.

The phone will be available July 25.

Here’s a list of some of the specs and feature’s of Amazon’s new Fire Phone:

Ability to recognize 245,000 movies and TV episodes, 160 live TV channels and 35 million songs
Measuring 4.7 inches diagonally, it’s smaller than the leading Android but larger than Apple’s iPhone
13 megapixel camera with image stabilization
Unlimited free storage on Amazon’s Cloud Drive service
3D looking images in Dynamic Perspective that change depending on your angle of vision
Auto-scroll by tilting the phone
Apps are limited to what’s available through Amazon’s own app store
Comes with 12 months of Prime membership which is normally $99 a year