The Amazon Fire Phone Looks to Compete in a Tough Market

Amazon made a big move by moving from an electronics hardware business and making a move in the highly competitive smartphone market earlier this month by releasing the Fire Phone.

The Amazon Fire Phone's price sets it aside some of the best phones on the market like the iPhone and Galaxy Phone, at $650. It is a capable gadget but it is not good enough to make Apple and Android users jump ship. It is a convenient choice for Amazon-favoring shoppers but it is just another fish in a big sea of highly capable smartphones.

The Amazon Fire Phone is just like an oversized iPhone but with rubber edges and an Amazon logo on the back. It has four infrared LED sensors located on the corners of its front panel that detect where a users head is relative to the phone.

The phone's most prominent feature is its Firefly function. Using the camera's camera and microphone, it can detect text, movies, products and TV shows and instantly find it on Amazon, adding it to the users shopping basket.

The Fire Phone is an extension of Amazon's original environment, which is centered on their products; Amazon music, video and books. Otherwise, it is just like an iPhone, which is also centered on consumption of Apple content.

The phone comes with a year of prime membership, free of charge. Dialing up movies is easy with the phone thanks to its tight integration with prime.

At the heart of Amazon's strategy is the Fire-fly app, which allows one to turn the phone into a shop window from the click of a button. Point at a product, and it will find it instantly on Amazon, adding it to your shopping basket.

This consumer concentrated effort with technology has been Amazon's primary goal for years now, with their Kindle being the prime example, sending its users to purchase heavy amounts of books from the Kindle Bookstore.