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When we turn the clock back to 2014, 10 years ago, we will find that the mobile phone market at that time was still in a state of "vibrant vitality" and "flourishing".

That year, iPhone 6 was launched, and Apple's mobile phone size broke through, officially entering the era of large screens, and iPhone sales hit a record high; LeTV Mobile was officially established, ready to compete with Xiaomi in terms of price-performance ratio; Huang Zhang announced that he would serve as CEO of Meizu again, and the brand strategy shifted from "small and beautiful" to "big and complete". The Meizu MX4 released in 2014 received a good reputation...

In overseas markets, Amazon, as the world's largest e-commerce platform, is also gearing up to make its mark in the booming mobile phone market.In June 2014, Bezos officially released Amazon's first mobile phone, the Fire Phone. However, this was also Amazon's last mobile phone. The Fire Phone attracted many consumers in its early days, but soon fell out of favor in the market and lost in competition with other products.

Ten years later, Xiao Lei spent 200 yuan to experience Amazon's only mobile phone product again. Through a nostalgic journey, he reviewed the gains and losses of Fire Phone at the product level.

(Photo source: Lei Technology)

With 6 cameras, a mobile phone from 10 years ago is so compact?

The most eye-catching hardware feature of Amazon Fire Phone was that it was equipped with 6 cameras. However, unlike what most people imagine, most of them are not used for imaging. Specifically, it has only one rear camera for daily photography, and five front cameras. In addition to the selfie camera in the center, the other four lenses are evenly arranged at the four corners of the front of the phone.

(Photo source: Lei Technology)

The function of these four unconventional cameras is to capture the user's face in real time, so as to accurately locate the user's perspective, thereby serving the "naked eye 3D" function.When Xiao Lei actually tried this phone, he found that the icons and screen savers in the system adopted a 3D stereoscopic design, and different shapes can be seen at different angles. This is achieved through these four cameras.

(Photo source: Lei Technology)

According to Amazon's original idea, the 3D content on the Fire Phone must be more than just 3D icons, but also include 3D videos and games shot by the camera. Unfortunately, with the premature death of the Amazon mobile phone project, these can no longer be experienced. Even the most basic 3D icon function is limited to a few system applications of Amazon itself. Third-party application icons do not have this effect because they are not adapted.

(Photo source: Lei Technology)

Therefore, for Xiao Lei, who will experience this phone in 2024, the existence of these four cameras will do more harm than good and will only "increase power consumption."

In terms of performance, the Fire Phone is equipped with a Snapdragon 800 chip, which is basically the same as the Snapdragon 801 on the Xiaomi 4 of the same year. It has 2GB of memory and 32GB of storage. It was naturally a flagship at the time. Of course, in 2024, the performance of the Fire Phone is definitely not enough, and it is difficult to handle mainstream games. Due to system version restrictions, it can't even run AnTuTu and GeekBench 4, so Xiao Lei had to use GeekBench 3 to run it.The single-core score is 880 and the multi-core score is 2668, which is basically the same as Xiaomi 4.

(Photo source: Lei Technology)

In terms of camera, the Fire Phone rear lens has 13 million pixels and supports optical image stabilization, which was a pretty good level at the time. It is worth mentioning that this phone is equipped with a physical camera button, which can quickly call out the camera app and press the shutter even in the lock screen state. Even if I experience it again today in 2024, Xiao Lei believes that the physical camera button is still a better solution for imaging scenes.

(Photo source: Lei Technology)

In terms of specific imaging, the Fire Phone's sample photos are definitely not good enough now. In the daytime with sufficient light, overexposure sometimes occurs.

(Photo source: Lei Technology)

As for the advantages, one is the fast imaging speed, and the other is the relatively accurate color reproduction, which basically means what you see is what you get.

(Photo source: Lei Technology)

The Fire Phone is equipped with a 4.7-inch 720P screen with a maximum brightness of 590 nits. The quality was quite good at the time, and it can still be said to be delicate now. However, after all, it is a machine from ten years ago, and the LCD screen has aged and has a more obvious yellowish color.

In terms of battery life, the battery capacity of this phone is 2400mAh. In Lei's opinion, this is a major shortcoming of the Fire Phone. The battery capacity is small, and there are 6 cameras that consume a lot of power. If used normally, it needs to be charged several times a day.

Highly customized FireOS: exquisite, but not easy to use

The Fire Phone in Xiaolei's hand has been upgraded to the latest version of FireOS 4.6.1. Many people may be confused when they see FireOS, which is actually an Android customized system installed by Amazon for tablets and mobile phones. Unlike most overseas brands, Amazon did not directly use native Android, but deeply customized a system that is completely different from the UI interface to the interaction method.

(Photo source: Lei Technology)

First of all, the basic interactive operation method. In 2014, most mobile phones still used the three Android buttons, namely, back, home and menu. But Fire Phone did not do so. Instead, it equipped a physical Home button at the chin of the phone. Single-clicking directly goes to the home page, and double-clicking calls out the task interface, just like the iPhone at the time.The return operation is directly replaced by a gesture. Slide the home button from bottom to top to return. Frankly speaking, the sensitivity of the gesture operation is not very high and sometimes it is difficult to trigger.

The second is the UI interface. FireOS has been greatly modified compared to native Android. It is worth praising that the icons and UI of FireOS are very delicate and concise. For example, its settings interface is quite interesting. Each sub-option under each major category will have a specific and detailed description, and users can directly understand its specific meaning. For example, in the "Display" option, there will be screen brightness adjustment, font size, wallpaper, etc. They are not a few simple words, but a whole sentence, but the keywords are bolded.

(Photo source: Lei Technology)

If Amazon's mobile phone business can continue to operate normally and FireOS can continue to evolve step by step, then it has a good chance of growing into a distinctive customized Android system and making its own differentiation.But obviously, the failure of the mobile phone business caused the FireOS on the Fire Phone to fail, and the version number remained at 4.6, while the corresponding Android version number was 4.4.

This leads to a lot of trouble for Xiao Lei in 2024 when he wants to install third-party apps on FireOS. Today, few apps support Android 4.4, and it is difficult to find older versions of apps that are compatible with Android 4.4. Xiao Lei spent a lot of effort to install the Wandoujia App Store, but many old versions of apps can only be traced back to around 2019, which is still too new for this 2014 phone.

(Photo source: Lei Technology)

Seeing this, some people may question: Is it too much to ask a phone from ten years ago to install software from 2024? Coincidentally, Xiao Lei has a 2015 Xiaomi Note, which is a Snapdragon 801 model and is considered to be a product of the same generation as the Fire Phone, but Xiao Lei upgraded it to MIUI 8 based on Android 6.0, and its compatibility is still far better than Android 4.4. In addition to daily apps, the commonly used tool apps such as LocalSend on Xiao Lei's Android phone can be supported by Xiaomi Note but not by Fire Phone.

In general, Amazon's FireOS is very distinctive, and it is different from native Android in terms of UI design and interaction logic, which made people shine in the mobile phone market at that time. However, as an abandoned system, the subsequent updates and maintenance of FireOS have long been stagnant. For people today, it is just a "fossil of Android customized system."

Why can't Fire Phone replicate the success of Kindle?

Many people were optimistic about Amazon's mobile phone business back then. The core idea was that Amazon had an advantage in content and could compete with its rivals by making profits from software. Indeed, Amazon has many Internet content businesses, including online movies, music, e-books, etc., and they are still heavyweight players in the streaming media market today. Back then, Amazon launched the Fire Phone with the purpose of promoting its own Internet business. FireOS is made into a highly customized version, which is essentially to have stronger control over the device and better embed its own services into it.

However, looking at the entire history of smartphone development, attempts to make up for hardware losses through Internet content profits have all failed without exception. Xiaomi, 360, and LeTV all tried this route in the early years, but all failed. Looking back, Apple has made the most profit in mobile phone content, but it is also the mobile phone brand with the highest hardware profits.

(Photo source: Lei Technology)

The reason is simple. In the Android camp, Internet content is not closed and cannot form exclusive advantages on devices of a single brand.Amazon's own content can be obtained by other Android phones and even iPhones, so Amazon's mobile phone advantage in this regard does not exist. The e-book mobile app provided by Kindle can also be provided, which seems to be similar, but Kindle's ink screen has a unique hardware advantage, which Fire Phone does not have.

In terms of hardware, the Fire Phone is not bad, but it has no differentiated advantages over its competitors, and the naked-eye 3D effect is more of a gimmick than a substance. More importantly, Amazon wants to further integrate the Fire Phone with its own Internet services, but the price of the phone itself is not cheap, with a bare-metal price of $649, the same as the popular iPhone 6 and Samsung Galaxy S5, so it can be said that it has no chance of winning.

Moreover, Amazon surrendered too quickly. In 2014, the head effect in the mobile phone market was far less serious than it is today, and the Fire Phone was quickly abandoned after the first generation was launched. In fact, with Amazon's own strength, if it can lower prices and adjust its strategy in the future, it may really make a name for itself.

But Bezos obviously didn't have this confidence. In June 2015, one year after the release of Fire Phone, a large number of Amazon phones in stock were cleared at a reduced price and flowed across the ocean to the Huaqiangbei market. These second-hand Fire Phones in good condition were priced at just over 400 yuan on the e-commerce platform, giving the enthusiasts of the time the opportunity to buy Fire Phone at a 10% discount. The low price and good configuration made this phone a little popular among domestic digital enthusiasts.

Today in 2024, when I look back at the Fire Phone product, I feel that Amazon threw a stone into a turbulent river. The brief ripples quickly disappeared, and nothing changed.

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In the hottest month of July, Lei Technology's mid-year review is launched, summarizing the brands, technologies and products worth recording in the first half of 2024 in the technology industry, recording the past and looking forward to the future. Please pay attention.