Amazon Fire Phone Now at AT&T, Gets Teardown

By Kevin Parrish
published

On Friday, AT&T announced that Amazon's new Fire Phone is now available through Amazon, through AT&T's online store and at AT&T retail stores nationwide. The 32 GB model can be purchased for $199 with a two-year contract, or $27.09 per month through AT&T's Next 18 plan. The 64 GB model is $299 with a two-year contract, or $31.25 per month via the Next 18 plan.

"Fire pushes the boundaries of innovation, and is easy-to-use," said Jeff Bradley, senior vice president – Devices, AT&T. "Amazon has a vast content ecosystem that consumers know and love. AT&T has built a reputation of offering innovative devices with great pricing options – all on the nation's most reliable 4G LTE network. Together, we're thrilled to offer a device that will be as dynamic as its name."

AT&T said that for a limited time, customers who get the Amazon phone will receive one full year of Amazon Prime free, and 1,000 Amazon Coins that are worth $10. For consumers who are already Amazon Prime customers, they will get an extra 12 months free. Amazon Prime includes Instant Video, Prime Music, and Kindle Owners' Lending Library.

Amazon's Fire Phone uses a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC clocked at 2.2 GHz. The phone also includes a 4.7-inch LCD display with a 1280 x 720 resolution (315 ppi), 2 GB of RAM, a 13MP camera on the back and a 2.1MP camera on the front. There are also dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus auto processing, Wireless AC and Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity.

The big deal with this phone is that it has a Dynamic Perspective sensor system, which consists of an IR camera at each corner of the screen. The phone also includes a gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer, barometer, proximity sensor, and an ambient light sensor.

On a repairability scale, iFixit reports a 3 out of 10. After taking the phone apart, the site reports that the phone contains "tons" of cables and connectors that makes disassembly very tedious and reassembly somewhat difficult. The four IR sensors are encased in glue, meaning in order for the owner to replace one of the sensors, heating and cutting will be required. All four sensors will need to be changed if the screen needs to be replaced.

Amazon Fire Phone
Amazon Fire Phone
View Deal

Follow Kevin Parrish @exfileme. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Kevin Parrish
15 Comments Comment from the forums
  • anthony8989
    Only one paragraph of quoted text - I'm impressed.

    Kevin Parrish, you're finally learning how to paraphrase.

    trolololol
    Reply
  • rishiswaz
    I don't see a point to this phone.

    Then it's not for you
    Reply
  • jasonelmore
    I love the hardware and can appreciate the sheer amount of engineering that went into this phone. People are being a bit to hard on it because it's expensive, and most people assume you cant install android apps on it, but you can, and it's expensive because the hardware is ambitious. this phone basicly has a xbox one Kinect built into a smartphone.

    6 camera's, just wow
    Reply
  • alidan
    I love the hardware and can appreciate the sheer amount of engineering that went into this phone. People are being a bit to hard on it because it's expensive, and most people assume you cant install android apps on it, but you can, and it's expensive because the hardware is ambitious. this phone basicly has a xbox one Kinect built into a smartphone.

    6 camera's, just wow

    all i wanted was a sub 300$ phone so i could use android apps on it and take it around as a camera... cant do that when its 600~ off contract
    god thing i found a better phone that is at cost and has a bigger display.
    Reply
  • soldier44
    720p and 4.7 inches what is this 2010? Note 4 ftw.
    Reply
  • Mark Rad
    I like the FireFly scanning text feature so I don't have to type (phone numbers web addresses).  Fortunately, I can do this on my iPhone already with a Free App that is very accurate ( VisuCaller).
    Reply
  • shafe88
    "Gets Teardown" Where's the teardown, all's I seen where just specs of the device and the rest about just talk about amazon and at&t. If the article is appose to be about teardown of the device than I want photos of it actually being taken apart and the internals shown like the battery, screen and motherboard.
    Reply
  • canadianvice
    "Gets Teardown" Where's the teardown, all's I seen where just specs of the device and the rest about just talk about amazon and at&t. If the article is appose to be about teardown of the device than I want photos of it actually being taken apart and the internals shown like the battery, screen and motherboard.

    That's the author being less transparent. You'll notice he linked the iFixIt teardown in the last paragraph.
    Reply
  • shafe88
    "Gets Teardown" Where's the teardown, all's I seen where just specs of the device and the rest about just talk about amazon and at&t. If the article is appose to be about teardown of the device than I want photos of it actually being taken apart and the internals shown like the battery, screen and motherboard.
    Oh crap, next time I should pay more attention to links in the article.

    That's the author being less transparent. You'll notice he linked the iFixIt teardown in the last paragraph.
    Reply
  • mforce2
    I don't see a point to this phone.
    Don't worry, you're not the only one. All Amazon was supposed to do was provide a cheap Android phone for people to buy their crap, err I mean content and services and all that.
    That is what they did with the Kindle Fire and it worked well, nothing fancy just a cheap tablet so people could then buy stuff from Amazon and Amazon could make money.
    With this phone they suddenly decided they wanted to have something special and go against Iphone, Galaxy, Optimus ... well they're just not Apple or Samsung.
    Reply