Fire Phone Price & Release Date: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos launched its new smartphone called Fire Phone in a press event in Seattle last week. According to CBS News, the Fire Phone will be priced at $199 for 32GB and $299 for 64GB. It is already available for pre-order, and will ship on July 25. This device is offered exclusively through AT&T with a two-year contract.
The Amazon Fire Phone measures 4.7 inches diagonally and is reportedly ideal for one-handed use. It also has a 3D display feature which according to CBS News, is called dynamic perspective, and "it shifts the images on screen to account for a user's angle of viewing and movement of the phone."
Media reports have pointed to having multiple cameras to produce 3-D images. It wouldn't be the first 3-D phone but it will be set apart, Associated Press reported.
"First on the imaging side, they're using four infrared sensors to really capture and identify a users' head position. They are getting it down to the eyeball level so that the phone knows where your eyes are relative to the screen on the phone - and they've come up with a low cost way to do this. Second, they've designed the display so that it is capable of providing a 3D perspective without the need for 3D glasses or exotic technology," Sanjay Patel, professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and CEO at Personify, an immersive video technology company, told CBS News.
Associated Press reported that the Fire Phone will bring features seen in other Amazon devices, such as X-Ray for supplemental content and Mayday for live tech support. Besides the two, there's access to e-books to borrow for members of Amazon's $99-a-year Prime program.
A Firefly feature will direct people to things they can buy on Amazon. It will let you take a photo of bar codes, phone numbers, book titles and more with the camera. Firefly will then guide you to, say, buy a physical book or an e-book through Amazon. Firefly also has audio recognition, so it can listen to a song and direct you to buy it later.
Bezos says that the camera has image stabilization to counteract shaking when taking photos. Amazon is offering unlimited free storage on its Cloud Drive service.
The phone will come with earbuds that have flat cords and magnets to clasp them together.
Reportedly, this smartphone will likely to run a highly modified version of Google's Android system like the Amazon's Kindle tablets.
