Let’s ignore the Fire Phone’s razzle dazzle features (“dynamic imagery” and
Firefly) for a moment and focus on the hardware itself. After using the
device for a couple of days, I can see that it’s well-sourced and
solidly-built. By well-sourced I mean that the component parts are of high
quality. The screen displays images clearly, brightly, and at high contrast.
The touchscreen is sensitive and responsive.
The Fire has some weight to it, so you don’t feel like you’re holding a
toy. I also like the design: The edges are nicely rounded and covered with a
material that’s softer than the edges of an iPhone. When you set the Fire down
on the table, there’s a soft gripping feel, not a loud clacking sound.
The Fire Phone should be understood as an extension of the Amazon digital
ecosystem. It’s a thing you use to buy and consume Amazon music, video, and
books. In that way it’s no different from an iPhone, which is a
consumption device for content from Apple’s ecosystem. And, yes, the phone does
seem to want to build shopping into every experience it can, but to call it
just a “shopping phone” is missing the point.
The phone comes with a year of free Prime membership. I found that going to
the video section then dialing up some free “Prime” movies was a good
experience. I don’t usually watch video on my phone, but dialing up videos
seems easy on the Fire because of the tight integration with Prime. Because I
was already a Prime member, the phone was all ready to show me new episodes of
shows I like and new movies I might like to see.
Similarly, when I opened the Music section, the first thing I saw was all
the records I’ve ever bought on Amazon, all ready for streaming. A swipe from
the left brings out a panel that lets you list your music by artist, song,
genre, etc.
The overall navigation of content and features in the phone took some
getting used to for me. The Fire offers some navigational tricks that, once
you’re used to them, really do help you get to things you need quicker. For
instance, you can usually flip a panel in from the right or left side of any
type of content section and get contextual links to places you might want to
go.
The first thing many of us learned about the Fire Phone was its “dynamic
perspective” feature. The phone uses four sensors on its front to determine the
user’s position relative to the screen, then adjusts the images on the screen
to create natural-looking 3D perspectives
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