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Amazon Fire Phone camera review

Amazon Fire Phone camera review


 smartphone reviews are written with the needs of photographers in mind. We focus on camera features, performance, and image quality.

Introduction

After first venturing into the hardware business with Kindle ebook-readers and Fire tablets, the Fire Phone is Amazon's first foray into smartphones. In a mature market new products need to differentiate themselves from the competition and it appears Amazon is fully aware of that as the Fire Phone comes with a range of new and pretty unique features. Apart from currently being the only smartphone to run Fire OS, the device comes with Dynamic Perspective, a 3D-user interface enabled by four front-facing cameras that changes the screen content based on where your face is in relation to the device, and a feature called Firefly. 
Firefly uses the phone's camera to recognize objects and then finds them in a database. For most physical products Firefly will give you the immediate option to purchase them on Amazon but when you point the camera at, for example, a famous painting the app will attempt to identify it and bring up a relevant Wikipedia article. Additionally, Firefly doesn't just see but can also listen. In a Shazam-like fashion it can identify music and TV shows which, of course, you'll be able to purchase straight from the device as well. 
Purchase? Yes - as you would expect from any Amazon device the Fire Phone also integrates all the Amazon content services, such as Prime Video, Kindle reading app and the new Prime Music service. The camera specification sounds promising, too. A 13MP sensor is combined with a fast F2.0 lens with five elements and an optical image stabilization system. There is also a dedicated shutter button and unlimited photo storage on Amazon's cloud drive. 
Apart from the four front cameras required for Dynamic Perspective, the rest of the hardware is in line with the high-end offerings from other manufacturers. The Fire Phone is powered by a quad-core 2.2GHz processor and images can be viewed and edited on a 4.7-inch IPS LCD display with 720p resolution. The Fire Phone comes in 32 and 64GB variants and after initially only being available in the US can now be purchased in several European countries as well. Read our full review to find out if its an alternative to the more established iOS, Android and Windows Phone competition for mobile photographers.

Key Photographic / Video Specifications:

  • 13MP camera
  • F2.0 maximum aperture
  • Five elements lens
  • Optical Image Stabilization
  • 1080p video

Other Specifications:

  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad-core 2.2GHz processor
  • Adreno 330 graphics
  • 2GB of RAM
  • Fire OS 3.5
  • 32 or 64 GB storage
  • 4.7-inch IPS LCD display, 720p 
  • 2400 mAh battery

Our 10-page review

We've considered every aspect of the Amazon Fire Phone camera, with the photographer in mind. We examined the user interface of the native camera app and its special features. We experimented with the camera's performance when taking stills and video, and had a play with the device's many special feature modes. Click any of the links below for more information of specific functions and continue to our conclusion for a final summary of our findings.

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