The Amazon Fire Phone has without a doubt been a flop for Amazon, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad product. Its failure to sell is mostly attributed to its high $650 launch price. The phone has been steadily dropping in price ever since and has now reached an all time low at just $159. That price is for an unlocked unit with no contract. You can just buy it and connect it to any existing or new AT&T or T-Mobile plan, no questions asked. The Fire Phone also still comes with a full year of Prime membership. Factoring in the $99 cost of Prime membership means the phone is essentially $60 if you were planning to become or remain a Prime member anyone. Existing Prime members who purchase a Fire Phone get their Prime membership extended by a full year, so they receive the same extra value as non-Prime customers. You absolutely won’t find a new phone matching the specs of the Fire Phone for anywhere near $60 or even $159. The Samsung Galaxy S3, for example, is currently $200 for a phone that is more than twice as old as the Fire Phone. As a flagship phone, going up against the latest iPhone and Android phones, the Fire Phone fizzled out, but this huge price reduction as a result has made it one of the best budget phones available.
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The only bad thing about the Fire Phone is the lack of Google Cloud Messaging for receiving Push Notifications in certain messaging or news apps. Devs need to stop depending on Google’s own proprietary Play Services API’s for push notifications (or even Google Maps) and use their own-in house setup or Amazon’s SNS Push services which are universal to all flavors of Android. Regardless, fingers crossed that it gets Fire-Lollipop later this year!
I’d also add that the Fire Phone doesn’t support OTG USB. Major pain in the arse. I actually got mine at the beginning of the year when it was $199, which was still a pretty good deal for me as my Prime Membership was up so that was $99 savings. This is even better at $169 obviously with the 1 year Prime Membership included. I like the phone (don’t actually use it as a phone, i.e. no SIM card) but wish it supported OTG and didn’t turn WiFi off if you are running low on space. Also wish people actually used the 3D effect and Amazon would allow Devs to use 3D icons.
This would probably make a great remote control for the fire TV. You would pretty much be able to push any file to the fire TV as well as use its own on screen keyboard to type stuff into the fire tv. Plus get a extra year of prime on top of what you already have.
It’s like getting a handheld keyboard/remote/fire TV companion for $59.
What does everyone else think of this use case?
Yep. Sounds like a good idea. You can use voice search too (if you don’t already have the voice remote). I just use mine as an Android WiFi device.
Just ordered one! Gotta say that’s a heck of a deal. With tax it’s like paying for prime then getting a phone with really good specs for around $68!
Not a lot of development and I’m sure once I do my research I won’t be surprised if amazon hasn’t already foiled root/unlocked bootloader attempts but I paid for the hardware and feel like I made out pretty well. Just hard for me to get excited about fire OS.
I’m confused, when I go to Amazon, it says the phone is $449 unlocked..?
It was a daily deal. You missed it. :(
D’oh!
I was on the wall researching about this phone last night and then this morning deal gone so that decides that!
hmm maybe I’ll snag it in the future..
Would anyone know if I have a straight talk sim if it’s as simple as moving the sim from the iPhone to this Fire phone to get service to it with the same number?
Is it more or less like hot swappable without other involvement?
It should be, as it is unlocked… you’d need to verify that the iPhone model you use has the same size SIM card as the Fire Phone though… I know my iPhone 3GS SIM wasn’t the same as my iPhone 4S SIM.
Bought one last year, tried to like it for about 6 months, finally gave up and sent it back for refund. The Fire OS is SO locked down as to be unusable. Bought a Nexus instead. At least the OS on those is open to installing other apps and not just tied to Google. I’ve tried many different devices over the years and at this point will never buy another Amazon device. Period.
Fire Phone now back down to $199. Just grabbed it. Looks like this is a list price too! (Not discounted). Hopefully if it goes down further on Prime Day I can convince Amazon to price match.