Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Amazon Fire Phone... or Flicker Phone

Today Amazon released a phone today called the Fire Phone which will be be featured along the Kindle Fire tablet line and Fire TV. Now I always have stated that the world is a two horse race between Samsung and Apple and LG creeping up in the distance, while Google/Android also duking it out via platform/software, the hardware is between the iPhone and Galaxy. For a phone to break into the scene of the smart phone market and make an impact, it truly has to change the game, be functional, useful and we have to fall in love with it because not every company shouldn't have the right to be our phones because of the sub par quality of the handset.



           SIDEBAR - Please think about this, A phone company like Apple or Samsung battle it out to   get your money to be your phone for 2 Years. So be very picky because even marriages can end quicker without consequences, so how is Amazon going to earn its way into your pocket and pocket book?

Amazon delivers the sale pitch at their keynote that Steve Jobs perfected and Apple is successful at, so the fact that even their sales pitch looks and sounds like Apple, tells me you should buy an iPhone. Amazon is also tell you that you can store pictures and giving up Cloud drive space and throwing in Amazon Prime membership for free. I guess these are perks if you are a regular subscriber and Amazon did just beef up its App Store and added a music streaming service.

What you are going to get with this handset is a quality build product, Amazon's flagship devices are not going to cut the quality of the build, the phone  features Gorilla Glass and chamfer edges throughout the phone, the screen is quality and the cameras are also pretty impressive to power the gimmicky 3D experience. Amazon introduced "Fire Fly" an app that can scan items and give you the option to buy it from Amazon instead of standing in line for the product that is right in front of you. If you live entirely in the Amazon Marketplace and if you are too lazy to type the item you want, well then this is the phone for you!

This is the major drawback, if you are going to be married to this device for 2 years, you are paying the same amount to AT&T because Amazon has an exclusive carrier deal to only be offered with this service (sorry Verizon). Also if you don't already have a Kindle, then you probably do not know that the app store is extremely limited, the Google Apps that everyone in the universe uses, even on Mars and Jupiter because Google has been there, so the productivity that your current phone is, except for you flip phoners out there!

So in closing why would you buy this phone? for the same dollar you get a refined phone from Apple, a superb phone from Samsung with better cameras and the best screen ever tested, a Google built phone such as a Nexus that has the purest Galaxy Experience which can connect to smart watches and Glass. By choosing this phone you are giving up all the utility, all the refinement of the many versions of iOS, you are stuck with something that is super limited and doesn't offer much that you couldn't get with a free phone. I guess if you really need to save money to get streaming services and Prime for a year (but what about year 2, now your stuck with a garbage phone and you have to pay for Amazon Prime - FML!). The only thing that can sway my opinion is if you can manage the inventory of your Amazon Store and improve you Amazon Store... well then that right there is a game changer!

No comments:

Post a Comment