The Forgotten Amazon Fire Phone - Retrospective Review 

Fair to say Jeff Bezos had a burning passion for this phone, even if it went down in flames. I'll see myself out. For more fire puns, follow me on twitter @91_tech! Instagram too why not

I just remember MKBHD talking about how people shouldn’t buy it back in the day lol

That ad for the phone at the beginning actually wasn't bad, the "I've been on this earth 9 years" joke won me over.

I had one of these. About a year after release, Amazon was selling them with a year of Prime for $99 so basically a free phone since I was going to pay for Prime anyway. I never put a SIM card in it but it worked ok. Nothing to write home about.

Expectation: the most fire phone of all time Reality: a phone that should be set on fire

I remember seeing those Fire phone commercials back in the day....and I also remember never meeting anyone who actually bought one.

I remember seeing one once in an Amazon store. I also remember wanting one so bad, and I saved up enough money for one. Then my mom said I couldn’t buy one, so I bought a fire 7. It worked well until my cousin threw it out the window. It still works, but I don’t really use it much.

My mom got this phone, she liked it until the battery died and couldnt get it fixed. AT&T didnt even know it existed when we brought it to take a look at it. She got a new phone

just sold my old fire phone on ebay right as this uploaded

Even windows phone fell from grace,they would have a chance now if they released the mid to low range market is booming

I bought the Fire Phone when it came out, used it for years, absolutely loved it. Still like it now but it's so outdated that it can't be used. You could easily stick Google services and a proper launcher on it and it was just a normal phone then but the 3D effect was very impressive.

how can it be forgotten if no one knew about it 🤣

I really like that you found your passion, keep posting and I'll keep watching, King!

Another weird one would be the HTC First aka “Facebook Phone”

Man, i just discovered your channel with the netbooks video, and i'm loving all your content so far! Obviously already subscribed!

This was a fun phone for me. I got two when it was ultra clearance ($80 I believe). I got two years of prime and put cyanogen mod on it. Used them for a year or two and then sold them on eBay. Made a little bit of a profit when I sold them.

this phone is like the red phone. alot was promised but little was given...

I miss the Amazon underground section of the store, it was amazing!

I remember the launch. As someone who's in tech but not particularly invested in smartphone interests it struck me that there was a whole lot of attention until just after it launched and then it pretty much dropped off the face of the Earth

"I've been alive for 9 years " *has twitter* sounds like most of twitter tbh

Very cool video. Thanks for sharing this neat history on the Fire phone.

Man I had this phone from 2014 to 2016 and really liked it other than the lack of apps. I was a fan of the simple UI and design of the phone. And the little flick from the sides and tilt to scroll features were hella nice too

0:54 That face that you make when you realize your kids are advertisements

Amazon fire phone damn reminds me of august and September 2019 oof

Josh, I am so happy for you, I remember when you got your first 100k! Now it's 200k 1 million will be here before you know it!

When it became clear that the phone was a failure, I remember them getting really cheap on Amazon up until they were discontinued. I want to say they were going for about $199 at the time. I almost bought one but ended up getting a Moto g instead.

Seeing that commercial filled me with a wave of nostalgia. I remember seeing that commercial on tv a few times and saying "I wish I had a phone "

I only remember this phone from that commercial 6 years ago 😂

well done josh! love your content

I had a Amazon fire 7 when I was younger. I found it about a month ago and it feels so slow now 😂. When I use to use it, it had no problems with speed. That shows that tablets and smart phones are progressing fast.

I remember someone called HP with this obscure OS wanting to install printing software, he was sad to hear it's not supported.

lool I was thinking in this phone a few days ago, now you make this! Excellent.

I actually really wanted one of these back then..

OMG I remember seeing it at an AT&T store when I was in Vegas (2014)

This video is pretty interesting! I have actually never heard of it so this was pretty cool to watch! Nice job!

He made this on my birthday so the video immediately attracted me 💀

I Was a fire phone user. It was a great smartphone experience!

Dang, I remember when i kept seeing these ads feels so old

I remember being impressed with the spec sheet and even played around with one at an AT&T store. Ultimately, the software killed it for me.

my stepdad has actually been using this phone up till 2018 when the battery died out from so much heat and being charged, he switched to an iphone 6+ thou, but i remember this phone well

I do remember hearing about this years ago at some point. Not sure when.

0:10 lol Josh: oh no I need that phone to survive!

I remember this coming out, but had no recollection of it coming out in 2014. I felt like it was such a long time ago 😫

I love the 3d effect that phone had. I wish the phones today could do that.

Great video Man.

I was just thinking about this. How badly I wanted to pre-order it and how happy I was I didn't

I knew about this phone in 2015 and it was like an innovation to lotta people back then. My friend even had one

oh gosh i remember watching that first commercial sooo many times but I have forgotten about it until now.

I remember it, my local radio station even talked about it. They said that "the iPhone gets another competitor" or something like that

I remember looking at this wrong here and it was exclusive to AT&T and they had it for sale for $.99 on a two-year contract

I still have this phone, and I got it when it was relevant but It was already considered a flop by the time I got it. I was up for and upgrade and on the phone with AT&T and just casually mentioned it. With that, the rep on the phone was practically begging me to take it, I guess they were stuck with them. I wasn't big into phones and my phone at the time was three years old so I was like "Sure, whatever. New phone." I don't remember what my payment was exactly, but they practically gave me the phone for nothing, 64gb version no less. It wasn't a bad phone but the worst part was not having access to the Play store, nothing a bit of sideloading didn't fix. Despite the specs, this phone was always snappy as hell for me and I ended up loving it. I keep my old phones and they all became slow over time but I swear this phone is still just as snappy today as it was in 2014 when I got it. I connect it to my wifi and still use it as a radio,and for some light mobile gaming.

I do remember that I had an Amazon fire tablet back in late 2016 to early 2017. I do remember doing some reading and I remember that there was a way to get the Google play store in fire os so you can download Android apps.

1 view 32 seconds ago, thanks for letting me be early, love your channel, and keep up the good work!

The fire phone... yup... Actually loved that phone! Lol! Bought it in late 2014 and by beginning of 2017 I've went through 3 of them lol the battery just went out and killed the whole phone... but I loved it! It's time Amazon makes another attempt!

Lifelong iPhone owner since the original, I picked up one of these Fire phones when the price dropped like crazy to tinker around with Android. Their app store was largely useless. Side loaded the Play store and changed the launcher and not only opened up features much more, but also made it feel pretty usable.

I’ve been rewatching the flash and in S1E11 the flash uses one of these. As soon as I saw it I came right to this video as I’d seen the thumbnail earlier. Weird.

I was actually working for Amazon when this phone was released so I definitely remember the buzz that it generated, lol. I seriously considered getting it but I’m glad I just stuck with my iPhone!

Omg these youtubers are getting younger and younger. I remember the fire phone like it was yesterday

I actually remember these commercials. I actually thought it was just a prime advertisements back in the day lol.

I remember seeing the ad for this when I was about 12-13 and REALLY wanting this phone haha

wtf, literally a few days ago i was gonna search "fire phone in 2020" but never got to it, and then i got this video suggested today. good timing

Nice video josh

Lol im am watching this on my fire 7 tablet. Great for the price and just watching RU-vid and the web. Of course i put the google Play store on it . But thanks for the video as i never heard of the fire phone either. New subscriber.

~8:40. Props for giving credit to your sources.

I bought two of these on eBay when they were being liquidated and still got the prime subscription with them, so they were basically free. I remember rooting them and installing a custom rom. If you look on my channel my top video was filmed with it.

I saw the commercials and really wanted to trade in my iPhone 5s for this. I'm super glad that didn't happen.

I had one of these. It was pretty cool to be honest. Bland at times, yeah. But what I really liked was when I sideloaded apps like nova launcher and other google play stuff. It was pretty nifty then. If Amazon made FireOS more android-like while keeping the features it originally had (minus the 3d thing lol)and kept the price low, I feel like they could've done a good job with it. It would have sold well along with their fire tablets. Nowadays, I feel like the "cheap amazon" phones are Blu.

My mom had one of these for quite a few years until it died. She got a note 7 as a replacement, and then quickly had that replaced too lol

I remember an ad that talked about it's "gee golly whiz bang" feature of being able to take a picture of an ad that had a phone number in it...and being able to dial the number right from the picture. I was sorely unimpressed.

I love the piece!!! Of yeah... I wanted one.

I remember these! I remember the commercials lol I wanted one as a kid so baddddd

Just when I'm about to turn in for the night because it's already 2:05am, Josh drops a new video 😅 PS: gosh I'm too early lol

0:23 I LOVE that sing

I have some odd memories with this phone. I quite honestly miss it. I was obsessed with the 3D concept

It's really weird but I like it a lot. I remember when I traveled to US and saw this, I knew I'm gonna get one of these from the second-hand market one day. And I actually bought one last year, yeah it's a total flop to those average consumers, but as a phone nerd, I love it so much.

I had this phone and it was really good,it was fast feature rich and looked awesome but as you've pointed out using amazons version of android ruined it...the 3d wallpaper and ui was very cool...

8:04 handsfree gestures to control music were already in my galaxy s4 mini😂

I'm feeling pretty fired up now.

I definitely remember when this was a thing and lowkey wanting but glad I didn’t and got the iPhone 6 instead

That phone was cool it could have been the 3rd major mobile os, if only it had more app support and was much cheaper

I very nearly opted to get one back in 2015 as my Blackberry was on its way out, as I was already had the Kindle & the Kindle fire.What stopped me getting one then was the fact that they were already discontinued. The following year I went down the iPhone path.

I remember seeing a commercial for the fire phone back in 2014 when I was in sixth grade

Lol I had one of these, I bought it when the price tanked. The hardware tbh was great for the time but the lack of play store and vanilla android killed it for me. Thank God for XDA developers, they made it much more usable.

I am pretty sure I remember this existing, and the ad with the kids in the airport.

I remember the commercials and ads for this thing. Stopped in at an AT&T store in the mall to look at it. Picked it up, checked out the perspective stuff, and put it back down, there was no way it was worth owning.

have you reviewed the 2013 nexus 7 on the latest firmware or the iphone 4 with the latest firmware? those used to be pretty darn good back in the day

Can you unlock the bootloader on those things? I remember I had the "successor", the R1HD, and you could break into those pretty easily

My friend had one of these as his first phone but gave up on it because it didn’t have a lot of apps and he generally had issues with it.

Im making a SWOT analysis for my report about Amazon and it brought me here XD

Lol I remember those commercials like it was yesterday. 😆🥴

Not forgotten by me. I loved this thing.

I remember buying one when they dropped to £99 outright. Good phone for the price, at £99, that is. Massive pain in the ass having to side load everything though. Some side loaded apps just refused to work as well.

I remember that ad like the back of my head

I still have mine. Its a faithful device never had an issue with it . I got it in 2014

Awesome video man! I clearly remember the Amazon keynote, Bezos stood there acting like Steve Jobs and praising the Fire phone like it's gonna be the next iPhone killer or something... And we all just sat at home, thinking: Is he going absolutely nuts?!? I mean, even for 2014, the specs were a joke, Fire OS was a mess right from the start (and still is!), it brought nothing new to the table but at the same time cost more than a decently specced, 2014 mid-range Android phone. The 3D thing was cool, but as you said multiple times: completely useless and not more than a gimmick. Also, Android phones endorsing 3D was nothing new back then. The LG Optimus 3D did a far better job integrating special proprietary 3D features, more than 3 years before the Fire phone. Let's just say, the Fire phone was an aggregation of bad decisions. It could've been a huge success, if they would've dropped the 3D gimmick entirely and instead focus on producing a decent budget phone to add to their very successful Fire table lineup.

I remember seeing that commercial back then.

Used to have that phone back in 2014! it actually wasn't that bad but the back glass broke really fast

I have one! Tempted to bust it out to watch this video lol

Had this phone and loved it.

I remember that commercial like it was just yesterday LMAO