Amazon Representative Shows Off the 3D Map Features of the Company's New Fire Smartphone at the Company's Campus in Seattle
IN PHOTO: An Amazon representative shows off the 3D map features of the company's new Fire smartphone at the company's campus in Seattle, Washington June 18, 2014. Amazon.com Inc's new cellphone seeks to offer shoppers instant gratification by recognizing thousands of products, television shows and songs and allowing users to immediately buy them - on the e-commerce giant's own site, of course. REUTERS

Amazon has recently unveiled its Fire Phone and the enthusiasm surrounding the announcement of Amazon Fire Phone was highly palpable because the Amazon device is a unique 3D smartphone.

Readers who are interested in purchasing the Amazon Fire Phone should check out the comparison of this handset with the current market favorites, the Samsung Galaxy S5 and the Apple iPhone 5S.

Display and Size

The Samsung Galaxy S5 has a 5.1 inches Super AMOLED display, with a superior resolution of 1,080 x 1,920 pixels. Whereas the Amazon Fire Phone comes with a relatively smaller 4.7 inches IPS LCD display, with a screen resolution of 720 x 1,280 pixels. The iPhone 5S, on the other hand, features a much smaller 4 inches IPS LCD display with a much lesser resolution of 640 x 1,136 pixels. Clearly, the Galaxy S5 is the winner in this category.

The thickness and the weight of the Samsung Galaxy S5 are 0.32 inches and 145 g respectively. The Amazon Fire Phone, meanwhile, comes with a thickness of 0.35 inches and a weight of 160 g. The iPhone 5S is the thinnest and the lightest among the three handsets. This handset is 0.30 inches thick and it weighs 112 g.

Hardware and Software

The Galaxy S5 is powered by a quad-core (Qualcomm Snapdragon 801) Krait 400 processor, clocked at 2.5 GHz and it comes with a 2 GB of RAM. Whereas the Amazon Fire Phone is powered by a quad-core (Qualcomm Snapdragon 800) Krait 400 processor, clocked at 2.2 GHz and 2 GB of RAM. The iPhone 5S is powered by dual-core Apple A7 64-bit architecture, clocked at 1.3 GHz and an inferior 1 GB of RAM.

The Galaxy S5 runs on TouchWiz UI on top of Android v4.4 KitKat OS. While the Fire Phone runs on a forked version of Android OS along with Amazon's Fire OS 3.5, the iPhone 5S uses Apple's proprietary iOS 7.x.

Camera

The Galaxy S5 houses a whopping 16 MP primary camera with LED flash, while the Amazon Fire Phone and iPhone 5S house 13 MP and 8 MP camera units with LED flash respectively. Even though, the iPhone 5S sports only an 8 MP camera, it comes with dual LED flash unlike other phones. In addition, both Galaxy S5 and Fire Phone house 2.1 MP of front-facing cameras. Moreover, the Galaxy S5 can shoot 4K (3,840 x 2,160) videos, while the other two can't.

Interestingly, Amazon Fire Phone's 2.1 MP front-facing camera comes with "Dynamic Perspective" sensors. These sensors along with "invisible infrared" LEDs are used to locate the face (head) and eyes of the person in focus. This new sensor has the capability to even respond to the way a user holds, sees and moves the phone. There by, this phone supports single-handed navigation and gesture controls.

Interested users can check out 5 killer reasons to buy Amazon Fire Phone.

Memory

The Samsung Galaxy S5 comes with 16 GB or 32 GB of internal storage, while the Amazon Fire Phone comes in 32 GB and 64 GB of internal storage. The iPhone 5S, on the other hand, comes in 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB of internal storage. In addition, the Galaxy S5 supports microSD slot for expansion up to 128 GB, while the other two phones doesn't.

Battery

The Galaxy S5 comes with a superior 2800 mAh battery unit, while the Amazon Fire Phone and iPhone 5S come with a non-removable Li-Ion 2400 mAh and 1560 mAh battery units respectively. Here is a talk-time and stand-by time comparison between all three phones.


Galaxy S5

Fire Phone

iPhone 5S

Talk Time

21 Hours

22 Hours

10 Hours

Stand-by Time

390 Hours

285 Hours

250 hours

SIM

Both Fire Phone and iPhone 5S support nano-sim, while the Galaxy S5 supports micro-sim.

Colour

The Samsung Galaxy S5 comes in four shades gold, white, black, and blue, while the iPhone 5S comes in gold, black and white shades. The Amazon Fire Phone comes in a variety of shades like black and cayenne (in premium leather), or black, cayenne, citron, blue, or royal (in durable polyurethane).

Misc

It is worth noting that, the Samsung Galaxy S5 boasts water and dust resistant exterior (IP 67 certified), while the other two phones doesn't. In addition, both Galaxy S5 and iPhone 5S come with fingerprint sensor, while the Fire Phone doesn't. Also, both Galaxy S5 and Amazon Fire Phone support NFC, while the iPhone 5S doesn't.

Price

The Samsung Galaxy S5 (16 GB) is priced at AU$699.95 in Australia, whereas the Apple iPhone 5S (16 GB) can be purchased for AU$799.95. Amazon Fire Phone, on the other hand, is priced at US$199 (32 GB variant) and US$299 (64 GB variant) under AT&T contract in the U.S. The shipment of this 3D smartphone is expected to begin on July 25 in the U.S. Also, Amazon is giving away free Amazon Prime service for 12 months with this phone. Nevertheless, there is no information available on the availability of this 3D smartphone in other parts of the world at this point in time.

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