Amazon’s Fire phone good for first effort

Amazon may be new to smart phone business, but its Fire phone doesn’t feel like a first effort. Amazon has started shipping it on Friday. Fire phone offers many of features which are present on other smart phones like a high quality display, a speedy processor, a high resolution rear camera and an integrated store with access to thousands of apps, millions of sounds and lot of videos.

It also has a voice-control system similar to Apple’s Siri, a front camera which can be used for making video calls and an email program that connect to corporate mail systems. It has unique features that make it stand out to be special from all. Amazon offers Fire buyers a free year of its Prime service, which provides streaming videos and discounted shipping. That’s a $100 value that makes the phone a more interesting proposition. More other features can be found in device itself.

The other features are like, at the top of the screen we can find a virtual carousel filled with large icons representing apps that have been recently used, books you have recently read or any movies you have recently watched. Underneath the carousel, there are items related to the highlighted app or piece of content. The carousel makes it easy to find apps or content that we frequently use. The links below it can be even more helpful, since they can quickly return to the task we were doing when last used the app.

Not all apps have this extra capability when they are in the carousel. Beyond its interface, the Fire offers two other unique features: a visual and audio search app called Firefly and something called Dynamic Perspective, which, by tracking the orientation of the device and user’s line of version, can adjust what the Fire displays on screen.

Firefly uses rear camera to identify products by their cover, packing or barcodes. It also can identify songs, music, TV shows by simply listening to them. It has an facility to pick out telephone numbers, email and Web addresses from business cards, posters and other printed materials. Consumers can use Firefly to compare the prices of the products, or buy from Amazon. Firefly also allows users to dial phone numbers without having to type them in, it can also be used to quickly identify the book which we are reading and then buy an e-book version of it from Amazon’s Kindle store.

Firefly is currently limited in what it can recognize, except when an item had a barcode. Firefly recognized consistently are books, it couldn’t identify other things, even when their labels or brand names are clearly visible. The biggest infirmity of Firefly is its lack of apps. The device runs a custom version of Android rather than the Google approved version, it can’t link to Google Play store.

Firefly is a greatest first effort for Amazon and it’s worth a look if you are already an extensive customer of its online store. Its standout features need more polish and its app selection needs broadening to be a true competitor to Apple and Samsung.