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What's MISSING on Amazon Fire Phone... and why it WON'T set the world alight

You fought hard and you saved and earned. But all of it's going to burn...

Hi Jeff, take a seat. We need to talk about apps

No, the issue is all the other stuff that is missing. Both my banking apps are absent from the Amazon app store, as is the official Dropbox app. And the Guardian. And Uber. And Foursquare. Granted, a lot of the major apps are available, including Spotify, Glympse, Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Instagram and VLC, but the plain fact is that Amazon’s app store is a poor relation to Apple and Google’s equivalents.

Yes, of course you can sideload regular Android apps but there are the usual caveats about security and malware-riddled apks sourced from dubious websites. And you can forget about running any apps that require Google’s Play Services.

Incidentally, by way of disclosure Amazon gave me – and as far as I know every other hack who’s reviewed the Fire Phone – £50 to splash in the Amazon store on top of a 30-day free trial membership of Amazon Prime.

The Reg Verdict

As a stand-alone product the Fire Phone doesn’t quite cut the mustard. This is mainly because the hardware and the price don’t match and the absence of Google’s Play Store means that you’ll have to do without some of the apps that a lot of people take for granted. The Dynamic Perspective and Firefly features are not, in my book at least, enough to compensate for these failings, even though I enjoyed using both.

If you are already knee-deep in Amazon-sourced media then perhaps there will be more of an attraction – though the lacklustre sales of the Fire Phone in the US suggests that while the Amazon connection is enough to sell a shed-load of aggressively priced Kindle Fire tablets it’s not enough to sell a lot of expensive smartphones. For £200 on PAYG, or £20-25pcm with a 3GB data allowance, more people would be tempted. ®

Fire Phone opened

What's MISSING on Amazon Fire Phone... and why it WON'T set the world alight

Expensive but thoughtfully done, Amazon's Fire Phone is a decent standalone product. It's a shame the hardware doesn't reflect the price tag.
Price: £399 (PAYG) / from £28pcm on contract... $199 in the US! RRP

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