Amazon Kindle Fire Phone Review

Amazon made it extremely clear that when it does eventually launch its very own smartphone, it will, without question, stand out from the rest. Here is my personal review of the Amazon Kindle Fire Smartphone. The opinions are mine and so is my taste, if there is something I do not personally like, it does not mean that you won't like it either ...everyone to their own!

It is not as if Amazon is fresh or green to the fast moving mobile device market is it?.

The original launch of the Kindle tablet seems quite a long time ago now, in the dim and distant past. Its various close relatives have blossomed into very successful tablets in their own right.

The Kindle Fire HDX succeeded the Kindle Fire HD as well as the Kindle Fire. If ever there was a learning base to develop a top selling smartphone, it would be the Kindle range.

The greatest recipes are made from other successful recipes. This is no doubt what Amazon did when creating the Fre Smartphone. Imagine taking the many good features that can be found on Amazon's own tablets and build them into a brand new smartphone, call it Fire Phone but more importantly make sure that it's definitely not just a shrunken Kindle Fire HDX. That would be the recipe to success.

Amazon did just that when they created the Fire Phone. First and foremost, it is a phone and not a shrunken version of their tablet, although it does have some of the elements of the HDX such as the swipe/sliding motion and that is a good thing.

Although it has Amazon's stamp all over it, it does have the cosmetics of other smartphones but some would argue that they all look pretty much the same anyway.

The price will find its own level, at the moment it is free in the UK on contract so you can pick one up for nothing and pay £28 per month on contract via 02. You can buy it outright, check Amazon’s website details.

Memory is important for the busy smartphone user and if you use the Fire Phone camera more than average you will be better going for the 64GB, if not choose the 32GB instead. Both have 2GB RAM.

Because of the novel 3D camera, it is likely to be an element that makes this phone desirable over equivalent smartphones and therefore use the 3D camera a lot, so think about going for the 64GB.

It is powered by a Snapdragon 800 chipset with 2.2GHz CPU and Adreno 330 GPU and fair to say that you wouldn’t find this spec in high-end phones but it works well in the Fire Phone and that is all that counts..

It measures 139.2 x 66.5 x 8.9 mm and looks similar to the Nexus 4 because it has a glass finish to the front and back although it has the Amazon logo loud and proud. The display screen measures 4.7 inches with a resolution of 1280 x 720. Personally I’d like to see more resolution but again its fine and the images still looks clear and crisp. It handles well in the hand, probably not as nice as the HTC One M8 but that is just my opinion. If you want a mid-weight phone rather than one that is far too thin, or far too thick then the 160g weight may be perfect for you. Personally I don't like the featherweight ones, I'm forever patting myself down looking for the phone, yet I don't like chunky phones, the Amazon Fire Phone is just right.

The phone controls are well thought out with the power button at top, volume keys and camera button sit on the left with a microUSB port at the bottom of the phone. It is a good one-handed control even for smaller hands.

The Amazon Fire Phone has a a 13MP camera and an LED flash but that’s not all by any means. 1080p HD video recording at 30 fps (front- and rear-facing cameras)

That’s not all, it has cameras on each of the four corners of the phone to enable Dynamic Perspective, this is a fantastic smart software feature giving the display an amazing 3D effect when you tilt the phone whilst looking at object, it gives a three dimensional appearance.

Amazon's Fire Operating System is based on Android however doesn’t feel like any OS you might have experienced in other androids.

Upon staring the Amazon Fire Phone for the first time an enthusiastic welcome with a five minute tutorial takes you on a very informative walk-through and really focuses on getting the best from the Dynamic Perspective and teaches you the key brand features called Firefly.

It is great to have such an introduction into using a new phone because you get to discover many more features that you might have missed if you didn’t explore the various icons.

I would like to have had a menu button to refer to, so I can see the various apps, and ‘back’ button would be helpful but alas these are not on the Fire Phone. However, you are compensate with the ability to simply swipe up from the bottom and it turns back the page to where you were..

I have a Kindle HDX so these actions are familiar to me and I have no doubt you will get used to it very quickly. Like most, if not all smartphones the home page plays host to all the icons that relate to the apps and this is no different with the Amazon Fire Phone. Notifications and message previews come up on your home page too so you have an ‘at a glance’ view of any messages and make the decision whether to read it now or later.

The swiping gesture is the way you navigate around the phone, swipe from the left of the display, for a list of shortcuts, you’ll see apps, photos, videos etc. Swipe from the right of the display and get day to day information such as calendar and weather.

To access your panel of apps, simply press the home button when you're at the home screen carousel, and a list of app icons will appear.

Because it isn’t trying to copy any other phone, the Fire Phone by Amazon has its own personality and will take a little amount of time to get used to the swiping and 3D camera effect but all in all, it is a nice looking phone with a good feel and not a lot of money for a lot of smartphone.