Should I review the Amazon Fire phone?

I was asked this on Twitter, so I’ll ask the rest of you: is anybody actually interested in me reviewing the Amazon Fire Phone? I don’t really do tech reviews, so I don’t know what I’d talk about.

10 thoughts on “Should I review the Amazon Fire phone?”

  1. Sure. being a big Amazon guy, I’m curious, and what I’ve heard so far is that it’s interesting but not quite ready for prime time compared to the iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, etc.

  2. I have no intention of giving up my Jesus Phone, but .. contract renewal is looming so .. sure. I’d be interested in knowing how you’re liking it, and what the cost structure and service are compared to .. yes, the Jesus Phone.
    .
    Mew

  3. Yes. Just tell us what you liked, what you didn’t, and why.
    .
    Fie on tech reviews. They’re always written by early adopters who think anyone not spending thousands annually on the latest tech is a luddite. Take the XBOne/PS4, the thing that the reviewers keep harping on is that they can display 1080 resolution at 60 frames per second. Of course, the vast majority of HDTVs can only display at 30 frames a second. So why would I care?

    1. What Luke said. I probably won’t be getting the Fire since it’s only available from AT&T and I’d rather be skinned alive than deal with them again, but I am interested in what you think of it, because you have a knack for making otherwise dull crap interesting.

    2. Luddite…

      I’d guess most new TVs can do 1080p@60hz, I know mine does it at 120hz. Although seriously, unless you just have to get a new TV right now because the old one died, I’d wait until 4KTVs get a lot cheaper (probably within 2-3 years tops).

    3. My guess is that if the console can only render at 30fps it might look choppy. If it renders at 60 but the TV only displays every other frame, that would probably look better.

      I think, anyway–I’m not really sure.

      1. And how fast does your brain render?
        .
        Remember, your mark 1 eyeball is still converting that digital signal into analog for your wetware to process ..
        .
        Mew

        1. You can tell the difference. Barely. In a side-by-side comparison. *IF* you’re sitting close enough.
          .
          That last part is especially the rub. Your eyeballs have to be within 5 feet of a decent-sized HDTV with 20/20 vision to tell the difference between 720 and 1080 resolution.
          Framerate seems to fade even faster, but I haven’t seen any definitive breakdown.
          Me?
          I sit on the couch to play games (which is multiples of 5′ away from the TV), and am likely going to be wearing glasses in a couple of years.
          .
          If you’re worried about the picture being choppy, get a HDTV that’s interlaced instead of progressive. This creates motion blur as an artifact.
          My 1080i looks smoother at 50 fields/second (that’s effectively 25 frames/second) than the examples of 1080p at 60 frames/second I’ve compared it to. (And mine is obviously much, much cheaper.)
          The downside is that fine details aren’t as sharp, and that you can’t take screenshots.
          Remember that movies are only filmed at 24 frames/second.

  4. I think we probably would, largely because you’re more likely to care about the same things I do.

    1. How does it work as a phone?
    2. How intuitive is it?
    3. How easy is it to import all your cool stuff from your old phone?
    4. How does it do as a twitter platform? Facebook, other social media?
    5. App performance/availability?
    6. Music?
    7. Overall appearance?

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