Hello gents,
Anyone here have Amazon’s new phone?
Just wondering if it’s any good and how the operating system compares to Android. I’m eligible for an upgrade and it’s between this and the Galaxy S5.
I have a kindle fire and like it so I was wondering about the phone.
I’m a Kindle junkie so I’d be on it like a seagull on a sandwich . . . but I’m stuck with Verizon is this neck of the woods. :cray:
Skip this phone. Getting poor reviews in the tech community.
Look at the S5 or LG G3 or One M8 if you want Android. BTW the Fire phone IS an ‘Android’ phone…just with a different skin and alterations to the OS so you’re locked into the Amazon App Store. Can’t even access google play on that phone. You have to side load apps and can’t use apps that need google play to work.
I’m not an Android fan but if I had to pick one it would be the G3. I’m not a fan of Touch Wiz and Samsung build/design. The G3 is a very nice phone and the UI is pretty good. They all run Android but you’re getting a different skin with each phone so they all look different and will have different UI functions.
Check out the YouTube channel Pocketnow. They do pretty good reviews and comparisons of phones.
ditto this 
fun to keep up on tech and reviews are not so good for this phone 
the S5 would be my choice for a droid if I went that way
Unless your life is centered around Amazon.com, it’s a horrible buy.
I will second most of the other replies. I am an apple guy. But if I was to go Android it would be the G3 or one M8. Avoid the fire phone like the plague. It will have none of the positives of android.
Well, I guess my transition from flip-phone to smart phone will have to wait for the iPhone 6.
Well damn. I had high hopes for it but oh well. Guess I’ll go with the S5.
Look at the G3 or One M8 instead. Better phones.
Get an iphone, while not perfect, they have a far better track record than anything Android related as far as Cyber threats are concerned.
95% of new malware is being written for the Android platform, even Windows pales in comparison…It is a dirty little secret no-one likes to talk about much.
There are literally Millions of compromised phones out there and the end users are totally oblivious. If you’re going to use an Android device, please don’t do any banking or credit card purchases on it…
Thanks, I will.
Could you elaborate on what makes the G3 better than the S5? I was looking at the specs but don’t know what some of it means. I don’t know anyone with the G3, most everyone I know has the iphone or S3/4/5.
On paper there isn’t a lot of difference. Although the G3 has a MUCH better screen than any other phone on the market right now.
The biggest thing to me comes down to the OS and interface. Yes they all run android. However Samsung hates android. They do everything they can to make sure you are as limited as possible when it comes to making changes. Their custom interface is called touchwiz and it is considered by most to be one of, if not the worst custom interface out there. In addition the level of bloatware they throw on a phone is staggering. Samsung was the first real mainstream android phone. That gave them a huge marketing advantage. But as I said earlier, if I was to leave IOS it would be for a G3 at this point and nothing else. I have thought about picking up one just to play with but funds are still a bit tight for an extravagance like that. An S4 or S5 without touchwiz or the extra bloatware would be great. But at that point why not get a G3 with its much higher resolution screen…
Saw an ad for this the other day. Genius that people will pay for a product, that helps you better buy more products.
And rest assured everything you do on the Amazon phone will be tracked, analyzed and used to further Amazon’s store/partners. The same is true of androids and iphones. But with Apple or Androids there is already a strong community of devs that make privacy protection tools that help stop such things. Since the Amazon phone uses a custom rolled OS the support for privacy add ons and root access to install them is going to lag behind.
I’m skeptical that the G3 has a “MUCH better screen” than any other phone. Yeah, it’s qHD where the Samsung is “standard” HD (1920x1080), but I’m not sure that matters a whole lot if at all. Maybe I’m a sucker for Super AMOLED screens.
I’d personally skip the HTC, the screen is disproportionately small given the total footprint of the device. I had one for a couple of weeks before I switched to a GN3.
TW isn’t as bad as it used to be and honestly while I prefer vanilla Android, use a different launcher and you’ve dealt with most of the suckage. I use the same launcher (Nova) on my GN3 that I did on my Nexus phones with vanilla Android and the “experience” is largely the same.
This is a good S5 vs G3 video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbwjTVqwYS0
PocketNow is the best phone review channel, so they have more stuff there is you look for them.
Personally, I prefer my Moto X over both of them.