This phone looks like it has some real innovations and unique design decisions:<p>-3D Screen<p>-Gesture Control<p>-Surround Sound Speakers + Prime Video<p>-Prime Data<p>-Firefly<p>-MayDay<p>Here is a quick breakdown:<p>The 3D screen is a pretty unique feature compared to the top-of-the-line offerings from the industry leaders. I saw a 3D screen on a phone at a party at CES and I was impressed by the quality and useful ness compared to 3D TV. 3D makes much more sense on a smaller size screen because you add more real-estate with the other dimension.<p>Another interesting feature is that the phone is designed for use with one hand. To achieve this, it uses integrated gesture control, for example, tilt the screen to get more information or to access menus.<p>The phone a scanning system called Firefly that can be activated by a button and is able to identify products from photos (100 million items) and barcodes. This will make the phone extra dangerous to retail stores that are already losing sales to "showrooming".<p>The phone also features dual dolby digital speakers (one on each side) for surround sound when watching horizontally. They are also providing access to Prime Video catalog and store for unlimited pictures via their cloud services.<p>They are focusing on customer service and help by providing the MayDay 24/7/365 tech support for the phone. It sounds like agents can do a sort of screen share with the phone and guide users along. This will help adoption by people who are typically not good with operating new technologies.<p>The phone seems pretty cool and unique and with Amazon's ability to market it directly to their customers, it is sure to do well.
MayDay puts an Apple Genius Bar inside every Fire Phone. Anywhere on earth. Apple doesn't have the human infrastructure to replicate that.<p>It's a good example of Amazon leveraging their strengths
"Great phone for reading?" If you really cared about the reading experience, you would have put an AMOLED screen on it. AMOLED screens are far superior for night-time reading, which is when most people do their reading.
redirects to amazon.com for me.<p>edit: back up. 649 seems really steep.. especially with the "32GB for the same price as other 16GB smartphones" line