Amazon's long-rumored smartphone is real. Today during a special event in Seattle, the online retail giant officially announced the "Fire Phone," joining Amazon's growing lineup of physical products that already include Kindle Fire tablets, Kindle readers, and the Fire TV set-top box.
The Fire Phone has a 4.7-inch HD display, aluminum buttons, a Qualcomm processor, Adreno 330 graphics, 2GB of RAM, and a 13-megapixel camera--which features a f/2.0 five element lens and optical imag e stabilization. It also includes a "Mayday" button, allowing you to tap into Amazon customer service 24x7x365 if you need help in any way.
Amazon's Fire Phone also features a new service called Firefly, which is a visual recognition program that can see objects, QR codes, URLs, and bar codes. If you walk by a sign featuring a phone number, Firefly will recognize this and automatically call the number if you want. Firefly can even recognize music and audio from TV shows and movies.
There's no word yet on pricing or carriers. Amazon's press conference is ongoing. For more, you can follow along with GameSpot sister site CNET's liveblog.
No mention of video games was made today during the event, but Amazon is making moves in the gaming space. The company acquired Killer Instinct developer Double Helix earlier this year, and has even formed its own internal game development team, hiring Portal, Halo, and Far Cry developers to work there.
The Fire Phone runs on a version of Android and confirmed apps so far include HBO, Netflix, ESPN, YouTube, and Showtime Anytime. CNET reports that Amazon Prime members will have unlimited storage for photos. The phone also sports a special 3D interface called Dynamic perspective, which changes as you move the phone and your perspective relative to it.
| Eddie Makuch is a news editor at GameSpot, an d you can follow him on Twitter @EddieMakuch |
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