Monday, September 8, 2014

Amazon's Fire phone coming to the UK as an O2 exclusive


Amazon's usually quick to stock its national sites with any new homegrown hardware, but we were reminded just how long Fire TV has been out in the States last week when the company announced its European launch . Today, we've learnt Amazon's other new(ish) device, the Fire phone , will be making a much more timely appearance in the UK. From right now, you can pre-order it exclusively through O2, with September 30th set as the delivery date. The smartphone, which first landed in the US in late July, has a bunch of unique features like 3D head-tracking, one-handed gesture controls and live, on-device customer support through Mayday. There's also Firefly , an image- and audio-based search engine that can help you find products on Amazon, translate text, extract information from business cards and similar, as well as integrate with other apps like StubHub.


When we reviewed the handset , we weren't sold on the usefulness of all these features, especially when they can be a burden on battery life. That being said, the UK model will launch with Amazon's latest software update, which includes various systems tweaks and other, more significant improvements like the addition of quick app switching. Curiously, Amazon has decided to replicate the carrier exclusive model it has with AT&T in the US, just with O2 in the UK (the Fire phone is also launching in Germany soon with Deutsche Telekom). The handset will be free from £33 on O2's Refresh tariff with 2GB 4G data per month (the total handset price is £360).


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