HT_bgr_amazon_smartphone_sk_140618_4x3_992.jpg
  • Courtesy: BGR

Here's the announcement: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos showed off the Fire Phone, the first smartphone produced by Amazon. Andrew Cunningham at Ars Technica writes:

The phone has a 4.7-inch IPS display with 590 nits maximum brightness and an "HD" resolution, which usually means 720p. This isn't the biggest or highest-resolution phone there is, but Amazon says it has been "optimized for one-handed use." The phone has a rubberized frame, a glass back, anodized aluminum buttons, and Gorilla Glass 3 protecting the display from scratches and other damage...it uses a quad-core 2.2GHz SoC with an Adreno 330 GPU and 2GB of RAM, which probably means we're looking at a Snapdragon 800 or 801 chip. It's also got a 13MP camera with a f/2.0 five element lens and optical image stabilization...

The phone also has a feature called "Firefly" that, Shazam-like, can recognize a song at the press of a button. But Firefly can also recognize video, artwork, bar codes, and other cues, which The Verge explains on their live-blog as...

...the fastest "Hey I see that thing I want to buy that thing" machine ever made by human hands. Push a button, buy the thing I'm looking at. It's kind of stunning if you think about it. And terrifying.

Lastly, the phone has a 3D-like interface that allows you to scroll by tilting the phone. You can also see more information on maps and in photographs by moving the phone around, too. It's available exclusively on AT&T and it'll cost $199.99 with a two-year contract. So...