Fire phone: Will this be the game changer that Amazon is looking for?

Amazon’s much touted and discussed 3D smartphone is here. The Fire phone’s two biggest features are the Dynamic perspective and the Firefly button. For now the smartphone is retailing only in the US  bundled with the AT&T contract and starts at $199 for the 32 GB version. After the Kindle Fire tablets, this is the next big step taken by Amazon as far as hardware is concerned. So will this smartphone be a game changer for the company?

For starters, let’s acknowledge that Amazon needed to take this risk. As we had pointed out in this piece earlier, for Amazon Kindle tablets aren’t just hardware, it’s also a great way to bundle their own content and the sales for these devices have been falling.

The rise of phablets – smartphones with 5.5-inch and larger screens – has caused many people to second-guess tablet purchases and according to IDC data, tablet shipments were down to 50.4 million units representing just 3.9 percent growth over the same period a year ago in Q1. Worryingly for Amazon, the company managed to ship only 1 million Kindle Fire tablet units, and saw an overall negative 47.1 percent growth.

As we had already noted, Amazon would have to do something really different in terms of what the smartphone could possible offer to stand out from the crowd. In that respect, specs of the Amazon Fire are pretty standard. It has a 4.7-inch HD screen, a 13MP camera with optical image stabilization and 1080p HD video, a 2.2 GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, dual stereo speakers, and Dolby Digital audio. The smartphone uses the same forked Android OS that Amazon’s Kindle Tablets do, so users will not get access to the Google Play Store. It will however have access to the Amazon App Store.  Check out our full specs review here.

And while these specs don’t look like much to go by with, it should be noted that for Amazon this smartphone is more about enabling shopping. The one feature that does stand out is the Dynamic Perspective, which uses a new sensor system to respond to the way users hold, view, and move the phone. What this means is that some apps on the phone will have a three-dimensional depth to them, and tilting the phone will let you peek around the edges and it’s more advanced than what other 3D smartphones have offered.

Then there’s the FireFly button that takes real world shopping to another level.  Essentially this  dedicated button on the smartphone will let users recognise things in the real world from QR and bar codes, movies, music, etc. It is a way to scan and identify products and media around users just by pointing a camera at something. Once you take a picture of a product, the smartphone will show you where to buy it from. It can even direct you to more information, such as pulling up a Wikipedia entry on a painting might have clicked. The feature will also let you snap bar codes, email addresses, phone numbers.

Firefly has gone further from other smartphones, which have this feature, by bringing in audio recognition as well.  In short, the Firefly button will allow you to buy stuff directly from Amazon if you see it in real life and are too lazy to pick it up from a regular store. It’s the perfect marriage of hardware aiding online shopping.

Amazon has also offered buyers of the smartphone the Mayday service and one year free Amazon Prime service. Mayday service  was launched on Kindle Fire tablets, which basically gave users access to 24/7 support via video chat. Customer representatives can take over the screen on user devices to show them exactly how to do something.  Amazon Prime gives users multiple shipping benefits, including a Free Two-Day Shipping for eligible purchases, access to Amazon Instant Video and the ability to borrow books from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.    

In short,  for users in the US who are depending on Amazon as a brand, this is a great device as it puts all the best of the companies services into one device. And the company is hoping that the trust that people have place in Amazon is what will help them buy this smartphone. As this Wired   report notes, “According to Bezos, that’s dozens of millions of people who now trust Amazon. He drilled home the idea that Amazon leads a slew of consumer brand-trust surveys in today’s announcement.”

Of course, it won’t be an easy win for the Amazon phone. It will require third-party apps, which explains why the company has launched an SDK kit for Firefly and Dynamic Perspective. For app developers who want to create an app with 3D effects, creating one for Amazon’s Fire phone might sound like an appealing option.

The problem though for the Amazon Fire phone is that it is hoping that the two new features and a slew of Amazon services will help it standout from the crowd. The risk is that people could find the idea cool, buy the phone but eventually ditch it when the next iPhone or Samsung Galaxy device comes along. In terms of specs, it doesn’t offer anything that would really make the users go wow. Sure 3D effect sounds cool, but again you need apps for that and beyond a point, even the charm of cool wears off.