Amazon challenges rivals with 3D 'Fire' smartphone
Amazon on Wednesday unveiled its “Fire Phone,” a high end handset boasting “breakthrough technologies” and a move aimed at challenging market leaders Apple and Samsung.
“Fire Phone puts everything you love about Amazon in the palm of your hand instant access to Amazon’s vast content ecosystem” said Bezos. The handset has what Bezos called a “dynamic” display which shows images in three dimensions, and a scanner which recognizes products for sale and a variety of other objects such as artworks.
Amazon described these features as “two new breakthrough technologies that allow you to see and interact with the world through a whole new lens.” The so called “dynamic perspective” uses a sensor system “to respond to the way you hold, view, and move Fire, enabling experiences not possible on other smartphones,” .
The Firefly feature, which uses the phone's camera to recognize physical objects books, video games, food, household products and other items and gives you the option to buy all that stuff instantly on Amazon. “Amazon’s goal is always to get you one click closer to purchasing, so this integrates completely with that strategy.”. You can also scan television shows and movies to get more information on them in real time.
Contrary to some speculation, Amazon is not shaking up the pricing model for the smartphone market selling the device to U.S. customers through AT&T at $200 with a contract, starting July 25. As a financial inducement, consumers who buy the phone will get one year of “Amazon Prime,” which includes free delivery of goods and access to digital offerings such as video and streaming music. Analysts gave a mixed reaction, saying Amazon did not appear to offer a compelling reason to consumers to switch, but could appeal to its loyal customers.
“There are people who know and love all things about Amazon, and that’s the low hanging fruit,” said Ramon Llamas, mobile analyst at IDC. “This is an uphill challenge to get people to give up their current smartphones and switch to this one.” Trip Chowdhry, analyst at Global Equities Research, said Amazon is now taking on rivals such as Google and Apple head on.
“The top appealing factor for the Amazon phone is competitive pricing and the technology that enables it to produce three-dimensional (3D) images,” one of The Korea Times’ industry sources says, explaining why Samsung and LG view the Fire Phone as a potential threat. “The mobile is customized for shoppers. Customers can shop more conveniently by using the Amazon content platform and Amazon will be able to earn more commissions.”
The claim of “competitive pricing” is especially puzzling because the Fire Phone isn’t competitively priced at all. In fact, at $200 on contract with AT&T, it’s priced just like flagship phones from Apple, Samsung and LG.
Nonetheless, The Korea Times seems to think this is an attractive price for American consumers, who will also get the added “bonus” of being restricted to using the phone on “AT&T, a top-tier carrier in the United States.”
IbisWorld telecom analyst Sarah Kahn said the Fire Phone is “not different enough” and does not offer a big financial inducement for consumers to switch. In a note to clients, Chowdhry said the Amazon phone has “innovations that Apple will need to catch up to.”. “Apple has probably fallen behind in innovation they are still struggling with figuring out the right screen size, while Amazon is racing ahead with innovations, with dynamic perspective and Firefly being the most ground breaking innovations,” Chowdhry wrote. “Amazon.com’s FireOS is not good news for Google, as this could hurt Google’s developer ecosystem and could provide an alternate Amazon’s AppStore to Google’s Play.”
This makes for beautiful home screen images, but it feels like little more than a gimmick at this point. The 3D-enabled maps app, for example, is nice to look at, but doesn't offer any compelling functions you wouldn't find on Google (GOOG) Maps. The takeaway from all this? If you do a lot of shopping online and are in the market for a new handset, the Fire Phone is worth considering. But if you're happy with your iPhone 5s or Galaxy S5, there's no compelling reason to change
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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos unveiled the device, Amazon’s first smartphone of its own, which has a 4.7-inch display, a high-definition camera and Amazon’s free help service. The phone also ties in to Amazon’s vast array of other offerings, serving as a platform for digital content such as books, films and music and connecting users to the firm’s cloud storage. The relatively small size closer to the iPhone in size than the larger Samsung phones allows for easy one handed operation. The display allows for a more “immersive” experience because it recognizers the user’s position and adapts the image. It has other high-end features include a quad-core processor, Gorilla Glass and a 13-megapixel camera with image stabilization. Amazon will also offer free cloud storage for pictures for phone buyers. He added that Google and Amazon are now more direct competitors, because Amazon uses a modified or “forked” version of Android.
“Fire Phone puts everything you love about Amazon in the palm of your hand instant access to Amazon’s vast content ecosystem” said Bezos. The handset has what Bezos called a “dynamic” display which shows images in three dimensions, and a scanner which recognizes products for sale and a variety of other objects such as artworks.
Amazon described these features as “two new breakthrough technologies that allow you to see and interact with the world through a whole new lens.” The so called “dynamic perspective” uses a sensor system “to respond to the way you hold, view, and move Fire, enabling experiences not possible on other smartphones,” .
The Firefly feature, which uses the phone's camera to recognize physical objects books, video games, food, household products and other items and gives you the option to buy all that stuff instantly on Amazon. “Amazon’s goal is always to get you one click closer to purchasing, so this integrates completely with that strategy.”. You can also scan television shows and movies to get more information on them in real time.
Contrary to some speculation, Amazon is not shaking up the pricing model for the smartphone market selling the device to U.S. customers through AT&T at $200 with a contract, starting July 25. As a financial inducement, consumers who buy the phone will get one year of “Amazon Prime,” which includes free delivery of goods and access to digital offerings such as video and streaming music. Analysts gave a mixed reaction, saying Amazon did not appear to offer a compelling reason to consumers to switch, but could appeal to its loyal customers.
“There are people who know and love all things about Amazon, and that’s the low hanging fruit,” said Ramon Llamas, mobile analyst at IDC. “This is an uphill challenge to get people to give up their current smartphones and switch to this one.” Trip Chowdhry, analyst at Global Equities Research, said Amazon is now taking on rivals such as Google and Apple head on.
DEAD ON ARRIVAL
The general reaction to Amazon’s Fire Phone in the United States has been underwhelming to say the least, with some well-respected critics going so far as to say it’s “dead on arrival” and could be an even bigger flop than last year’s HTC-made Facebook phone. However, The Korea Times’ sources are hearing that local mobile powerhouses Samsung and LG are actually worried about the Fire Phone for reasons that seemingly don’t make a lot of sense.“The top appealing factor for the Amazon phone is competitive pricing and the technology that enables it to produce three-dimensional (3D) images,” one of The Korea Times’ industry sources says, explaining why Samsung and LG view the Fire Phone as a potential threat. “The mobile is customized for shoppers. Customers can shop more conveniently by using the Amazon content platform and Amazon will be able to earn more commissions.”
The claim of “competitive pricing” is especially puzzling because the Fire Phone isn’t competitively priced at all. In fact, at $200 on contract with AT&T, it’s priced just like flagship phones from Apple, Samsung and LG.
Nonetheless, The Korea Times seems to think this is an attractive price for American consumers, who will also get the added “bonus” of being restricted to using the phone on “AT&T, a top-tier carrier in the United States.”
Cho Sung-eun, an analyst at Samsung’s investment arm Samsung Securities, tells The Korea Times that the Fire Phone will “threaten” Samsung and LG because it’s adept at “promoting three caterpillars distribution, content and cloud.”. We aren’t exactly sure what he’s talking about what “caterpillars” here, but we do feel confident in saying Samsung has very little to worry from the Fire Phone, at least in its first generation.
Amazon (AMZN, Tech30)sells its Kindle and Kindle Fire tablets relatively cheaply in the hope of making money when customers use them to shop in its online store. The Fire Phone, however, starts at $199 with a two year contract the same as the latest high end phones from Apple (AAPL, Tech30) and Samsung (SSNLF).
Is it disadvantage?
Firefly is an ingenious way for Amazon to make purchases on its site even more seamless, but whether that solves a big enough problem to convince many Apple and Samsung users to switch remains to be seen. Amazon is sweetening the deal in other ways. For example, every Fire Phone buyer gets a one-year subscription to Amazon Prime, worth $99. With Prime, users get free two-day shipping on Amazon products as well as access to streaming video and music services.
This makes for beautiful home screen images, but it feels like little more than a gimmick at this point. The 3D-enabled maps app, for example, is nice to look at, but doesn't offer any compelling functions you wouldn't find on Google (GOOG) Maps. The takeaway from all this? If you do a lot of shopping online and are in the market for a new handset, the Fire Phone is worth considering. But if you're happy with your iPhone 5s or Galaxy S5, there's no compelling reason to change
Specification:
- Size: 139.2 x 66.5 x 8.9mm
- Weight: 160g
- 4.7-inch IPS LCD HD (1280 x 720 resolution) display with 315 pixel per inch (ppi) density, 590 nits of brightness and Gorilla Glass 3
- 2.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor with Adreno 330 GPU
- 2GB of RAM
- 32/64GB of storage
- free cloud storage for all Amazon content
- 13-megapixel rear-facing camera with f/2.0, optical image stabilization (OIS), dedicated hardware key and unlimited photo storage
- 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera
- 3D Dynamic Perspective technology (four corner cameras)
- dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus surround sound
- Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
- Wi-Fi channel bonding
- NFC
- Bluetooth 3.0
- global LTE support (9 bands)
- 2400mAh battery
- Android-based Fire OS 3.5.0 with Amazon services integration including Amazon Cloud Drive, Amazon Music, Mayday, Firefly (with dedicated button), Silk Browser
- premium headphones with remote and mic
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