Amazon Fire Phone review: New smartphone is treading icy waters

It was inevitable that retail giant Amazon released a smartphone. It got a taste for mobile success with the Kindle, Kindle Fire and, most recently, the Kindle Fire HDX ─ all affordable tablets that provide the perfect vessel for getting you locked into Amazon's video, music and online stores.

Unlike its tablets, however, the Amazon Fire Phone is doing anything but setting the US ablaze. Can it get a less frosty reception in the UK and does it deserve Digital Spy's praise? Here's our verdict.

The Good

• Solid performance and good build
• Fantastic tech support

The Amazon Fire Phone looks like a decent bit of kit. There's a hint of the Nexus 5 in there, which is no bad thing. It has angular edges that curve inwards towards the back of the case, making it comfortable to hold ─ although the gloss back is somewhat slippery.

There is a micro USB port at the bottom of the handset, with volume buttons on the left-hand side. For left-handers, it's great news. For right-handers, it's a bit tedious. At least the addition of a camera button below helps relieve the misery, and the buttons are well built.

Below the display, there is a hardware home button. It's useful, but we would have preferred a back button to one side and a menu button on the other like you get on most Android devices, as it's more intuitive for navigation.

A 4.7-inch display of 1,280x720-pixel resolution makes the Amazon Fire Phone seem small, but there's enough screen real estate to watch Amazon Prime shows or check your emails. Most flagship and some mid-range devices offer full 1080p, so it's a bit behind the curve, but still bright and detailed enough for just about anyone.

The only really annoying bit about the Amazon Fire Phone - when it comes to the design - is the top power/lock button. It's also pretty heavy too at 160g, but we can live with that. Overall it's strong enough to survive daily life, if a little lacklustre when sat next to the likes of the HTC One M8.

Performance

Another area where the Amazon Fire Phone scores some brownie points is in performance. 2GB of RAM and a 2.2GHz Snapdragon 800 processor may not be top-of-the-range, but it's up to the task of opening and closing apps and general snappiness. Adequate is the right word. Storage options, meanwhile, are 32GB or 64GB, so only the worst digital hoarders will quickly run out of space.

Camera

Besides the camera button, which starts the camera in rapid time, the Amazon Fire Phone is a pretty good snapper. While the camera options are limited, it takes above average shots out of the box with no messing around. The front-facing camera is reasonable, too, for video calls and whatnot.

The 13-megapixel sensor is actually capable of some good low-light shots, thanks to keeping noise at bay while ensuring the shot is bright enough to see what's actually going on without loads of blur. The HDR mode is another plus, as is the 1080p video quality at 30 frames per second.

Camera purists who like to mess about with the settings will find the Amazon Fire Phone limiting, but arguably a good camera is best when it gets on with the job and here it performs (especially with the help of Burst Mode), even if the colours rendered could do with being a bit more inviting.

Operating system

The operating system is Android. Well, Android-ish. It's a modified version that is recognisable but far more annoying to use, such is the mixture of a weird home display that shows your most recently used stuff, an app drawer and two left and right sub-menus.

The left sub-menu contains a list of handy shortcuts, while the right gives you daily contextual information ─ weather reports and calendar updates if you have added an email address. Accessing them can be done with a quick flick.

You do start to get used to the layout, but it always feels like a hand-me-down mix of Android and Windows Phone or Android and iOS. It helps little that you only get access to certain apps, not Google Play in its entirety. Given that app choice is a big pro of Android, it's a noticeable problem.

One unique trick the Amazon Fire Phone has up its sleeve is this weird Dynamic Perspective malarkey. Basically you can move the phone or your head and the icons and lock screen background change angle, as if you are looking at them from a different perspective. It's interesting for all of five seconds.

Firefly, a feature that lets you scan objects and then buy then on Amazon, is only marginally more useful. Alternatively, you could type the object's name in Amazon or Google like a normal person. You can certainly get away with never using it, or Dynamic Perspective.

At least the 24/7 tech support is fantastic. Get stuck and you can chat to a nice Amazon person to get some help over a video call (you can see them, not the other way around). Apparently the average response time is measured in seconds so you should get your answer quickly. Oh, and a year of Amazon Prime is good, too, if you do actually buy a lot of stuff on the website.

Overall there's all the phone stuff you expect of an Android device, just in a weird package and without all the functionality you would get elsewhere. If you want simplicity, iOS or Windows Phone is a better option.

Battery

The Amazon Fire Phone does a fine job of lasting a day. In fact, moderate use could yield a day and a half, thanks to the 2,400mAh offering stuck inside. Obviously this depends on what you do, but at the very least it should do better than most flagship devices.

Verdict

As smartphones go, the Amazon Fire Phone is reasonably capable, but the lack of apps and price make it hard to recommend. It feels too much like an Amazon shopping device, which would be fine if it was affordable. It's also worth noting that the Amazon Fire is an O2 exclusive at the moment, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your opinion and of the network and the coverage in your area.

We like the build quality, while the interface, although cluttered, does look better than some of its competitors. Performance wise, there's nothing to really to fault, either. But overall, the package is a bit too flawed to have us dousing our love of Android in favour of Amazon's vision.

Factor in the gimmicks and a lack of apps, and we're not sure what the point is. Unless you're a die-hard Amazon fan who wants a year of Prime for free, you are better getting a Nexus 5 - or front up a bit more cash and buy the brilliant Sony Xperia Z3 Compact instead.