What Amazon's New Phone Has That Yours Doesn't

There's a new kid on the smartphone block, and it's looking pretty good so far. Today, Amazon announced the Fire phone with features that'll make you (at the very least) question the phone you have now.

As for specs, here's a quick breakdown of the hardware inside the Fire phone: a 4.7-inch Gorilla Glass screen with a HD resolution, quad-core 2.2GHz processor, Adreno 330 graphics, 2GB of RAM.

But this is what else we're excited to see on the Fire:

A Better Camera with (Free) Photo Storage

13MP rear camera with image stabilization
f/2.0 five element lens
Shutter button on the side of the phone to instantly access camera
Free unlimited photo drive on Amazon Cloud Drive (!)

Big Audio Sounds

Virtual Dolby Digital with surround sound
Magnetic earbuds with tangle-free flat cables

Dynamic Perspective, 3D in Amazon Speak

Amazon's take on 3D. Using four low-power, infrared cameras built into the phone, the Dynamic Perspective interface constructs 3D images at 60 frames per second to changes a picture's view as you move and tilt the phone around.
Tilting the phone in different directions can pull up app info or scroll through a webpage without touching the phone's screen.
The extra cameras and sensors not only create more exciting visuals, but they also track and respond to the user's head movements.
Amazon has officially opened the Dynamic Perspective SDK to allow app developers to go wild dreaming up the immersive ways (moving your head to turn corners in a game or tilting the phone to look at a map view differently) users can access content.

Firefly, a New All-Knowing Technology [1]

Uses the camera to recognize and identify over 100 hundred million items (like books, furniture, etc.) and gives you the option to buy on Amazon.
It doesn't just identify physical objects. Like the popular app, Shazam [2], it can identify a show or song and direct you to where you can buy that.
Has its own quick-access button on the phone's side.
Read more about Firefly's non-commercial uses here [3].

Classic Amazon Features Built-In

12 month free Prime membership; current members will have a free extra year added to their account.
X-Ray [4], which pulls up IMDB details of a TV show or movie.
Second Screen [5] "flings" video from phone to Amazon TV.
Prime Music [6]
Kindle app features like Whispersync
MayDay, Amazon's 24/7 live customer service support

The Fire Phone is available for preorder today exclusively on AT&T (32GB model, $199 on a two-year contract; 64GB model, $299 on a two-year contract) and will ship on July 25.

— Additional reporting by Kelly Schwarze

Source: Getty / David Ryder [7]