[I'm posting the review here since the Fire Phone is basically a Fire Tablet 'Mini-Me']
Disclaimer #1: As you can tell by my device list, I am a contented resident of the Amazon eco-verse. Virtually all of my digital content (ebooks, music, video) has been purchased from Amazon and resides in the Amazon Cloud. I am also a Prime member.
Disclaimer #2: If you've been a member here very long, you've probably encountered my rants about screen glare, unreadable tiny print, migraines, etc.
Disclaimer #3: I do not participate in 'social media' websites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and cannot comment on how well this phone integrates with them.
Disclaimer #4: My current cell phone is a 10-year old Kyocerca with a 2" green screen that just makes phone calls. You might say that I've been a bit resistant to adopting new cell phone technology.
So:
The Fire Phone is basically a miniature Fire Tablet that is also a smartphone. As far as I can tell, it is a decent smartphone with all of the basic features (camera - front & rear, texting, integrates with multiple email accounts, map/directions, music, etc.) - so I am not covering them in detail unless there is something unique to Amazon, or if someone has a question.
Set-Up: surprisingly frustration free. I usually have an acrimonious tussle with new technology - but (with the help of the Amazon Support pages) and my familiarity with the Fire Tablets - all went smoothly. All the apps I already used on my Fire Tablet are now on the Phone. Hence, a very flat learning curve.
Carousel - Yes, the carousel is still there - but it's an enhanced carousel - which makes it both more annoying and extremely useful. You can toggle the home screen between the carousel & an app grid screen showing all apps loaded on the phone. Recently accessed items (apps, books, songs, etc.) appear in the carousel. You have to manually remove them one by one.
For content (books, songs, movies), there is a list of related 'suggested' purchase options listed below the icon - I find this quite annoying - but no way to shut it off.
For apps - this list contains useful shortcuts. New emails are listed under the email icon (and yes - you can toggle between separate email accounts on the home screen to see the sender & the first line of the email.) Tapping on one of the listed items instantly opens it. Similar information for phone calls, text messages, etc. The idea is you can instantly access new content from the home screen/carousel without having to open individual apps. This works quite well - and pressing the Home button drops you back onto the home screen.
Menus: The strip menu (Books, Apps, Docs, etc.) found along the top of the Fire Tablet home screen is now in a left panel menu - that can be dragged out or flipped out onto the home screen - the Phone responds to tilt motions to slide menus on/off screen - it was very easy to learn to use gestures to access menus. The right menu panel contains contextual material that is related to whatever is on the screen. The top menu screen (Quick Actions) holds the functions normally found in an Android device: Sync, Settings, Mayday, Wifi/Bluetooth connections, etc.
Some reviewers complained about one-handed gestures - accidentally sliding menus out or unable to get them off the screen - but this hasn't been troublesome for me. The Phone seems designed for one-handed or even no-handed use -- there is an extensive suite of Accessibility features for speech recognition/communication.
AutoScroll works well within the Silk Browser - you can invoke the "Readability" mode and then scroll down a web page, controlling the speed by degree of tilt.
[To be continued ....Dynamic Perspective (or pseudo 3D, as I call it) is .... well .... odd but kind of interesting. You can play video games using head/eye movements to control actions on screen. And Firefly - somewhat useful now with many promised upcoming features.]