Amazon Fire Phone: The reason it will fail

The internet went abuzz with Amazon’s foray into the world of smartphones a few days ago; and the reason you saw no coverage here is that I am truly conflicted about it. Let’s just say I didn’t share the optimism many publications were writing about.

I read a good article over at Android Authority that shares many of my concerns – of course they seem to be on the “it will definitely fail” camp, whereas I am still undecided. Still, they raise excellent points. Here’s a part of the article:

We can point to a lot of reasons that the Amazon Fire is going to fail, and we will, but the biggest surprise is the price tag. It costs $199 on a two year contract (AT&T only) or a whopping $650 off-contract. That puts it in the same bracket as the Samsung Galaxy S5, the LG G3, and the iPhone 5S. When we compare specs with the S5 and G3, you find that the Fire lags behind. It has a smaller screen with a lower pixel density, it has an older, slower processor, and there’s no microSD card slot. It’s also heavier and lacks an eye-catching design. The camera should perform better in low light thanks to a wider aperture, but it ties with the G3 at 13MP and lags behind the 4K-shooting 16MP camera in the S5.

Having witnessed Amazon’s strategy with the Kindle Fire tablet line you could be forgiven for expecting a low cost device. Wasn’t the idea to get people to buy the hardware so they’d be locked into the ecosystem and spend, spend, spend on Amazon goodies? This device at the Nexus 5 price point of $350 would have caused serious shockwaves, but there’s nothing in the hardware to justify the premium price. Surely Amazon has something else up its sleeve?

Head over to Android Authority to read the rest of the article; do you agree with their conclusions?