Kindle Fire Phone - Hands On Review

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by booklover6

Amazon suddenly stopped letting people get 1 year of Prime with phones from ebay resellers. No warning to the sellers, either. That's bad business. They dumped huge lots of thousands to these resellers, they could have contacted and let them know they were going to do it. Instead, they left these resellers with a lot of unhappy customers, and who knows how many thousands of phones they are going to have a hard time moving.

Wow! I've been reading the boards about this and there are lots of ticked off customers. These resellers are gonna have to shell out refunds for opened phones and will then be stuck with them and the rest of their inventory. Nobody's gonna buy these phones at these prices without Prime.

[Barbara1955]

Originally Posted by booklover6

Amazon suddenly stopped letting people get 1 year of Prime with phones from ebay resellers. No warning to the sellers, either. That's bad business. They dumped huge lots of thousands to these resellers, they could have contacted and let them know they were going to do it. Instead, they left these resellers with a lot of unhappy customers, and who knows how many thousands of phones they are going to have a hard time moving.

That's not nice ... Did they take away your year of free Prime?

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by Katie1

That's not nice ... Did they take away your year of free Prime?

No. I am good through 2018. I think if they tried something like that, their customers would explode!

I read on another forum how an Amazon rep lied and said only a few people "slipped through the cracks" and got the year of Prime with these reseller phones. More like 17,000 from one seller alone.

This whole situation puts Amazon in a bad light, to me and I am sure to a lot of other people.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Wow! I've been reading the boards about this and there are lots of ticked off customers. These resellers are gonna have to shell out refunds for opened phones and will then be stuck with them and the rest of their inventory. Nobody's gonna buy these phones at these prices without Prime.

It makes me wonder it there'll be a big buying opportunity to buy remaining phones for peanuts, especially the opened phones. I wasn't interested in stacking Prime, but might think about picking up a "distressed" phone for a small outlay.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by issybird

It makes me wonder it there'll be a big buying opportunity to buy remaining phones for peanuts, especially the opened phones. I wasn't interested in stacking Prime, but might think about picking up a "distressed" phone for a small outlay.

That's a thought. We'll have to watch what happens.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by issybird

It makes me wonder it there'll be a big buying opportunity to buy remaining phones for peanuts, especially the opened phones. I wasn't interested in stacking Prime, but might think about picking up a "distressed" phone for a small outlay.

I would pick up a few more for $25 each. It's a fantastic media device.

[Barbara1955]

BL6 The person you got yours from on ebay still trying to sell them for $139 & Says now NO Prime. Now if just drop them to $25-$30 I could see folks buying them but not $139.

[Blossom]

I guess I'm the only one who thinks these phones are well worth the price without prime. I would have no problem buying them at their current price. Have you seen a $50 phone? Unless it's around the Holiday sales time regular price ones well they are junk most of the time.

The Fire Phone is a really nice phone/phablet. Prime was just a huge bonus.

I forgot to mention the camera which is 20mp that alone makes it more valuable than most phones at that price range.

[Barbara1955]

With the New Amazon Fire Tablet going for $49 Why pay over that for a Amazon Phone? That crazy with out the Prime.

[booklover6]

Yes, Blossom, I agree, they are a fine piece of hardware, whether used for a phone or not.

Katie, the Fire Phone has super resolution and 32 GB storage. The $49 Fire has poor resolution and 8 GB storage. (Yes I know the tablet has a card slot, which may or may not be a good thing) Plus the phone is extremely portable. I use the camera on it quite a lot, it's so good, I no longer have to take a camera, just take my Fire Phone. It's the best phone I've ever had and yes it is worth $125 or so even without free Prime. (But if I ever found them super cheap I would buy a stack of them!)

[tubemonkey]

I like the phone, but prefer the HD6. My favorite Amazon device is the Echo, followed by the HD6, and then the Fire Phone. The HD6 was a steal and I'm still loving it 11 months later.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I like the phone, but prefer the HD6. My favorite Amazon device is the Echo, followed by the HD6, and then the Fire Phone. The HD6 was a steal and I'm still loving it 11 months later.

I confess, I like the phone better for some things, like this backgammon game I am addicted to. But for something like web browsing or reading in a news app, yes I turn to the HD6. I use it more than my Nexus 7. It's such a marvelous size, and a quality piece of hardware.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by booklover6

I confess, I like the phone better for some things, like this backgammon game I am addicted to. But for something like web browsing or reading in a news app, yes I turn to the HD6. I use it more than my Nexus 7. It's such a marvelous size, and a quality piece of hardware.

I use mine mostly for games and videos. It travels with me if I expect to be waiting around for something. I now prefer 6" for a tablet. It's a better size than 7" tabs. And I love the screen resolution! For audiobooks and music, I prefer smaller devices like phones and MP3 players.

I've yet to use the cameras on any of my devices.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Katie1

With the New Amazon Fire Tablet going for $49 Why pay over that for a Amazon Phone? That crazy with out the Prime.

Not really. You can't make a call with a tablet, You can't use a turn by turn navigation app with a WIFI tablet while driving. You can't have 4G on a $50 Kindle Fire. The Amazon phone is a great phone The speakers are okay but the earbuds that comes with the phone are top notch. It's super portable. The texting app awesome. It can hold a infinite amount of texts. I have 1 years worth on here and still have not reach my limit. Silk actually works on the Fire Phone unlike the Kindle Fires where it is buggy and likes to freeze.

The camera is 20 megapixels The front camera is 5 megapixels. It has flash which also doubles as a super bright flashlight wonderful for power outages. You can store all your photos on the Cloud for free.

There is also voice recognition which allows you to use it hands free when needing to call someone, email, get directions and ask simple fact questions. This is wonderful when you are in a car and can't type due to bad roads or you are driving.

The PPI on Fire Phone is 315ppi which makes text rendering amazing. So it outdoes the Kindle Fire 6 which only has 252ppi Having such a high PPI on a phone is surprising.

I could go on and on why this phone is an amazing deal without Prime for the price. I can say it has been a real blessing to me this year being back in St Louis it has kept my husband calm when he expected me to know how to get from point a to point b by memory. Alot has change in 15 years so the navigation app was a must for our sanity

If you can tell I really miss my phone! I still use it to read or listen to music on the go but phone features really are amazing.

[booklover6]

Oh the navigation has helped me, too! I use the off line app Maps.Me. It has a little arrow that moves as the vehicle moves. It's awesome.