Amazon Fire Phone: 8 Services Features Of The New Smartphone

Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) unveiled its Fire Phone at a launch event in Seattle on Wednesday, expanding the Amazon Prime ecosystem into the smartphone market.

While Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos started with a quick rundown of the Fire Phone's physical features, including a 4.7-inch HD display and rubberized display, he then brought the phone’s service features front and center.

Take a closer look at 8 service features available on the Amazon Fire Phone below.

Free Unlimited Photo Storage

Bezos was quick to tout the Amazon Fire Phone’s 13MP camera, with its impressive low-light performance. But what’s surprising is that Amazon will offer free unlimited photo storage to save all those images in the cloud.

Prime Instant Video

Integrating Prime content was among the most expected features for the Amazon Fire Phone. Prime subscribers can now access 200,000 videos through the Instant Video service on their Amazon Fire Phone.

Prime Music

Launched just last week, Prime Music gives Amazon Fire Phone users access to over 1 million songs that can be streamed over Wi-Fi or a cellular data connection.

Second Screen

Video and sound from the Fire Phone can be streamed to any device that supports Miracast, such as the Fire TV, allowing Fire Phone owners to use their television sets as a second screen.

Kindle

Just like its e-reader and tablet siblings, the Fire Phone supports the Kindle store, so users can read over 1 million books available from Amazon.

Mayday

Amazon took a few steps out of the process of getting help and technical support with the Fire Phone. Mayday, first introduced in Amazon’s Kindle Fire HDX and now on the Fire Phone, provides quick access to a remote tech support representative on the Fire Phone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Audible, Kindle Newsstand and Comixology

There’s a plethora of content available on the Fire Phone, including audiobooks from Audible; newspapers and periodicals through Kindle Newsstand; and comic books through Comixology, which was acquired by Amazon in April.

Firefly

Firefly turns the Fire Phone into a scanner for everyday objects by using the Fire Phone’s camera to recognize barcodes, QR codes, books and other objects. Details about the object are then displayed on the phone along with purchase information, making it easy to order the scanned object from Amazon.

The Amazon Fire Phone can be purchased from Amazon.com starting at $199 with contract and $649 without a service plan.