Amazon has officially revised the price of its not-so-successful Fire Phone, now offering the 32GB unlocked GSM model for just $199.
The Amazon Fire Phone comes as the company's very first smartphone, marking Amazon's entry to this highly-competitive market. While Amazon has become successful on the mobile market with its Kindle lineup of tablets, it seems that things are not as bright on the smartphone side of things.
The Fire Phone comes with decent specs and features on board, but the overall experience has been mostly considered underwhelming. The smartphone has not sold as well as the company likely hoped for, and its pricing surely had a big role to play. The unlocked model of the Amazon Fire Phone has been priced at $450 up until now, which is $100 more than the Google Nexus 5, for instance. The Nexus 5 offers similar specifications, but it has the added benefit of delivering a pure Google Android experience, not to mention the much-touted Nexus experience that guarantees timely updates as soon as a new version of Android comes out.
With the new $199 price tag for the 32GB unlocked model, however, the Amazon Fire Phone now sounds more attractive. At this price point, the Fire Phone easily beats the Moto G, boasting double the amount of RAM, a higher-end camera, and a more powerful processor. More specifically, the Fire Phone has 2GB of RAM compared to the Moto G's 1GB, a 13-megapixel rear camera vs. the Moto G's 8-megapixel shooter, and a Snapdragon 800 processor vs. the Moto G's Snapdragon 400.
The Amazon Fire Phone further comes with the new Dynamic Perspective feature of the Fire OS, as well as other perks such as Mayday and Firefly. Moreover, purchasing the Fire Phone also entails one year of free Amazon Prime. The premium service grants access to Amazon's impressive trove of video, music, and books, and it also comes with free shipping on all purchases. Amazon Prime typically costs $99 per year.
As previously mentioned, this 32GB Amazon Fire Phone that is now available for $199 is unlocked and will work on GSM networks, which means that it will be compatible with most networks in the U.S. It will not work, however, with CDMA carriers such as Sprint and Verizon Wireless.
For more details or to purchase an unlocked Amazon Fire Phone, head over to the product page at this link.
