The Amazon smartphone may be ready for prime time soon enough, as the company has just announced a launch event scheduled for June 18.
Rumors of an Amazon smartphone have been making rounds since what seems like forever, but 2014 may finally be the year this elusive handset comes to light. Amazon already has a relevant presence on the tablet market with its Kindle lineup of devices, and the company is expected to expand its horizons soon and take on the smartphone market as well.
While Amazon did not specifically confirm that it plans to finally unveil its first smartphone soon, it did announce that it has set an event for later this month.
"Join Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos for our launch event. June 18, Seattle. Request an invite amzn.to/GetInvite," the company announced via a post on Twitter.
In addition, Amazon has also posted a teaser video starring several people, focusing on their reactions as they look at the company's new mystery device.
Based on rumors so far, the Amazon smartphone is expected to run the company's Fire OS, a customized operating system based Google's Android. This forked version of the OS is already available on Amazon's lineup of Kindle tablets and should grace its upcoming smartphone as well.
In terms of specifications, the Amazon smartphone is rumored to come with a 4.7-inch HD display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels and pack a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with 2GB of RAM under the hood. Previous rumors indicated that HTC may be in charge of making the handset for Amazon, but nothing is confirmed at this point.
Other rumored specs include some sort of 3D effect on the smartphone's display. According to reports, the Amazon smartphone will reportedly boast several front facing cameras in order to be able to produce this 3D effect.
As previously mentioned, however, it's all in the rumored state for now. All of these specs are based solely on leaks and speculation, with nothing officially confirmed, therefore it is highly advisable to take everything with a grain of salt. With June 18 less than a couple of weeks away, we'll soon know all about Amazon's big plans straight from the source. In the meantime, check out Amazon's teaser video below.
