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Going hands-on with the Amazon Fire Phone (pictures)

Take a closer look at Amazon's new Fire Phone smartphone.

Nate Ralph
Associate Editor Nate Ralph is an aspiring wordsmith, covering mobile software and hardware for CNET Reviews. His hobbies include dismantling gadgets, waxing poetic about obscure ASCII games, and wandering through airports.
Nate Ralph
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 The Amazon Fire Phone is powered by Amazon's wealth of content and hardware savvy, and packs a slew of features primarily aimed at helping you find things to buy. On Amazon, of course. The Amazon Fire Phone is available for pre-order now: $199 gets you 32GB of storage, while $299 gets you 64GB.

We'll have more extensive hands-on shots soon -- stay tuned!

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The Fire Phone is no slouch in the specs department: that 4.7-inch 720p IPS display sports Gorilla Glass 3 and packs 590 nits of brightness. The phone runs on a 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU, coupled with 2GB of RAM.

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Firefly arguably stole the show. The feature -- which has its own dedicated button --  recognizes QR codes and music, and can list Amazon prices and direct buying links.

And it does so much more: point the app at a scrap of paper, and it'll scan phone numbers for you to call. Point it at a work of art at a museum, and you'll get a Wikipedia entry for the piece. Let it listen in while you're watching TV, and you'll get details direct from Amazon-owned IMDB.

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Snap a photo of a product with Firefly, and there's a good chance Amazon will be able to track it down -- and sell it to you.

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Another curio: Dynamic Perspective, which is powered by the bevvy of cameras populating the front of the phone. There's a camera  on each corner as well as a center front-facing camera, and they're tasked with knowing where your eyes are at all times.

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You'll be able to control much of the phone with tilting gestures: scrolling through web pages or books, or pan around the map, and the phone's tech will (ideally) give you the best perspective with nifty 3D effects.

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With the maps app, you can can use the dynamic perspective functionality to take a peek around landmarks or get a quick look at things like Yelp reviews on a locale.

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In the less-practical but still-awesome department comes souped-up lock screen images, which use the dynamic perspective 3D effect to, well, look cool.

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There's only one camera on the rear, but it isn't exactly resting on its laurels. The 13MP rear-facing camera offers a an f/2.0 lens and optical image stabilization -- complete with tiny motors that Amazon claims will correct much of the motion blur from hand-shake.

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Amazon is also offering unlimited cloud storage for all of the photos that you take with the phone, an awesome offer for shutterbugs.

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A souped-up home carousel view gives you access to an app's important details, without requiring you to actually open the app: think of them as the Fire Phone's widgets.

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Use the carousel view to quickly respond to messages, listening to music through audio apps and more -- all without leaving the home screen.

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All of Amazon certainly has stepped up to the plate, with Prime Instant Video, Prime Music, the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, and more coming along for the ride.

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You can also always get to your content the old-fashioned way, via the traditional grid o' apps. Amazon's FireOS hasn't strayed too far from the rest of the smartphone pack here.

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Up on top of the phone, you'll find the headphone jack, the lock button, and the first of two stereo speakers.

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Tucked under the phone are a Micro-USB 2.0 port, the microphone and the second speaker.

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The Fire Phone is just 0.35-inch thick and weighs 5.64 ounces -- beefier than an iPhone 5s (0.3-inch, 3.95 ounces), but not dramatically so.

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That's the dedicated camera and Firefly button, right underneath the volume buttons. Use it to take a photo or track down that obscure poster you saw on your colleague's wall.

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All the cool kids are doing it: You'll be able to issue voice commands to the Amazon Fire Phone, giving it simple tasks like calling your contacts or sending text messages.

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Here's the 4.7-inch Amazon Fire Phone standing alongside the 5.1-inch Samsung Galaxy S5.

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While we'll need to wait until July 25 to see how customers -- and arguably more important, developers --  respond to the phone's launch, Amazon has certainly made a strong impression. Stay tuned to CNET for more coverage.

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