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[Vanillalite]

http://m.gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/amazon-ice-smartphones-android-india-1707858

Amazon's upcoming smartphones run the latest version of Google’s Android operating system with Google Mobile Services (GMS) such as Gmail and Google Play, the people said.

The smartphones are being referred to as 'Ice' internally, in what could be a move to distance itself from the disastrous Fire Phone brand, though it's not clear if Amazon will eventually bring the devices under the Ice name. Amazon declined to comment.

The company plans to launch at least one smartphone in India within this year, said one source.

One of the devices being tested features a display between 5.2-inch and 5.5-inch. Other specifications of the phone include a 13-megapixel rear-camera, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of internal storage. The phone runs Android 7.1.1 and comes with Google's AI Assistant, said a source cited above. The phone, which houses a Snapdragon 435 SoC and a fingerprint scanner on the back, is likely to be priced at around Rs 6,000 (roughly $93), though the exact price will depend upon the time of launch.

The person, who has seen and used the device, said the phone didn't have Alexa on it. Alexa is Amazon's AI-powered digital assistant that you can find on Echo speakers, as well as some refrigerators and other consumer devices.

The phone runs a software build that isn't finalised yet, and Alexa could make it to the device by the time of launch, the person said.

 

[Transistor]

Android phones without Google services are generally shit, so this is good. Hope they can make a good one.

 

[WhatNXt]

They should provision them with Google services AND Alexa. Let people choose.

The Fire tablets are great for people looking for something in an affordable price range. Great for kids too. I personally wouldn't have called them "disastrous".

 

[jobrro]

That's interesting but I wonder what is in it for them. Obviously if devices are semi-locked to Amazon services they see a profit from that ecosystem.

 

[Yoda]

This is the kind of "innovation" you get when you hire too many MBAs.

 

[emag]

The price is great, but I have zero confidence in Amazon's software. The Fire tablets are junk, the Fire phone was a disaster, and the Amazon App Store on Android is incredibly shoddy. I guess FireTV and Echo are okay, but they're significantly different from tablets/phones.

 

[Ambient80]

They should provision them with Google services AND Alexa. Let people choose.

The Fire tablets are great for people looking for something in an affordable price range. Great for kids too. I personally wouldn't have called them "disastrous".

The fire phones were absolutely disastrous. They were junk phones with no google services at all.

 

[Mr.Shrugglesツ]

Sweet, Google and Amazon bloatware on one device!

 

[Protome]

They should provision them with Google services AND Alexa. Let people choose.

The Fire tablets are great for people looking for something in an affordable price range. Great for kids too. I personally wouldn't have called them "disastrous".

They weren't calling the Tablets disastrous, they were calling Amazon's attempt at making a Fire Phone disastrous. Which is accurate. It was a bad phone with a bad gimmick for a bad price and it sold badly.

 

[FutureLarking]

The fire phones were absolutely disastrous. They were junk phones with no google services at all.

But they were amazingly well made and study pieces of hardware. Still use one as my spare phone (with Google services replacing all Amazon ones)

 

[WhatNXt]

They weren't calling the Tablets disastrous, they were calling Amazon's attempt at making a Fire Phone disastrous. Which is accurate. It was a bad phone with a bad gimmick for a bad price and it sold badly.

Ha.. Well to be absolutely honest, I didn't even realize they'd attempted a Fire phone! Literally didn't know that had happened and existed. So.. fair enough!

 

[br3wnor]

I was going to ask if they hadn't lost enough money on the Fire Phone to come up with this scheme but at $100 they might have a market. The cheap fire Tablets really seem to do well and there's definitely a market out there for low end tablets/phones.

I'd love to see the average Amazon user demographic though. The market for a $100 phone might not be the normal Amazon customer and the biggest selling point to the phone would be for heavy Amazon users.

 

[jagowar]

The price is great, but I have zero confidence in Amazon's software. The Fire tablets are junk, the Fire phone was a disaster, and the Amazon App Store on Android is incredibly shoddy. I guess FireTV and Echo are okay, but they're significantly different from tablets/phones.

The tablets are actually pretty awesome... but it does make sense to eventually allow people to do both.

The fire phone failed for 2 reason...
1. locking it to at&t
2. pricing it at flagship prices

Now that alexa is becoming a thing its very smart to try this again. If they released an unlocked device for $199 on amazon.com it will sell very well (assuming its decent). There is a pretty large void in the low-mid range (old nexus) which is where the fire tablets fit in and sell very well.

 

[Jarrod38]

The one thing that I liked about the Fire Phone was the FireFly app.

 

[Jams775]

I have a Galaxy S5 right now but if at some point I need to get a new phone, I just want something that has stock android and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. If they can deliver something like that for around $100 then I'd buy that.

 

[AfterTheFall]

I'd be interested in this. I quite like Amazon's products though I never did try their previous phone but I have Kindle Fire and Fire TV, ECHO and Kindle.

 

[Talka]

This is the kind of "innovation" you get when you hire too many MBAs.

I'm sure Bezos and his legion of MBA hires are crying into the night that you don't like their "innovation."

In all seriousness, don't get your hopes up about this phone. Outside of what they're trying with their new Alexa products, Amazon's device strategy since the Fire Phone flopped has been to make cheap, mass market stuff. Their tablets are deliberately terrible so that they can sell the cheapest tablets.

Amazon might sell a lot of these phones, but there's no way this is meant as an iPhone or Pixel competitor. It's going to be a cheap, jenky phone.

 

[LordRaptor]

Smartphones are only going to become more of a necessity, not less, when your mobile is a de facto ID card for 2FA access to services, and increasingly becomes a substitute for things like credit cards.

There's a huge global market for cheap-as-possible-but-still-modern-and-functional smartphones

 

[tim.mbp]

They should just stick to what they do now with the Moto G. Why waste money building a phone.