Gadgetory

with for tracking cameras a quick-fire scanning apps and plenty of amazon freebies the fire phone is definitely unique among its peers Amazon's innovations and attention to detail put it on the right track but performance snags scared with a high price tag make it a hard sell in an already crowded space I'm jessica's all court for Cena showing you the good and bad of Amazon's the fire phone like Amazon's tablets is based on Android code but it has an interface that's entirely its own I really like the carousel of oversized widgets and the related content or recommendations below and yes you can pin items to the carousel to keep them there or clear them out a swipe or chart of your wrist gets you context and navigation menus on either side of the screen I am personally a fan of the fire phones rich visuals especially in the lock screen amazon has sprinkled some other 3d like experiences throughout the phone as well including on the map and in some of the games and apps on the topic of apps the fire phone doesn't work with any Google Play services so you can't download anything from the Google Play Store which doesn't exist it means that there's no you tube or hangouts the proprietary app store is stocked with a lot of popular titles but amazon has a little bit of work to do if it wants to fill in the holes if you need any help along the way whatsoever Mayday connects you to a customer service rep for free sharing your phone screen through video chat it's pretty neat actually on the visual front the fire phone's design reaches for understated elegance in other words it looks like every other all-black phone for me it's 4.7 inch screen hits a sweet spot for wielding it with one hand and sticking it in a pocket glass on the back pumps up the premium value but also makes it more breakable luckily a soft rubberized band around the sides helps with grip the 720p HD resolution is on the lower end especially as we're seeing our first quad HD screens still because of the fire phone sub 5-inch screen it's 312 PPI is still visually immersive the 13 megapixel camera on the back takes pretty nice photos they may not be the pinnacle of crisp detailed smartphone imagery but they are absolutely shareable through social media 10 8 EP HD video capture is also good and a 2 megapixel camera on the front does the job camera settings and controls are sparser than I'd like but you will find HDR panorama and a mode called lenticular that helps you create your own 3d photo effects conveniently the button on the phone side is a physical camera shutter if you press down on the same shutter button up pops firefly which scans the world around you it matches barcodes and products to amazon's online catalog but can also identify phone numbers and email addresses plus songs TV shows and movies Firefly is one way to get you spending on Amazon but other services are wrapped in as well like Amazon Instant Video and Amazon music if you don't renew prime after your first free year you'll lose all those perks but you will get to keep the free online photo storage either way despite the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor performance was a little laggy particularly on load times for the 3d effects battery life also drain faster than i wanted and little quirks with missing notifications got in the way amazon will surely smooth over all those snags but in the meantime you have to figure out exactly how much amazon services are worth it to you the fire phone costs two hundred dollars on contract through AT&T which is the same price as other top-tier Android phones ultimately Amazon's first smartphone is interesting and even pretty good but if you're not a frequent Amazon user it's best to move on I'm Jessica doll court for CNN be sure to check out my entire Amazon fire phone review at cnet com you