Fire Phone gets a $200 price cut

[Phynaz]

Details at Ars:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/09/amazons-fire-phone-falls-to-99-cents-on-a-two-year-contract/

 

[edro]

Pleeeeease buy our phone.

 

[Ravynmagi]

With Amazon's terrible history of not updating tablets after only a year, $450 for this phone is still too expensive.

 

[SKORPI0]

Fire sale...... :biggrin:

 

[ponyo]

I don't think anyone is surprised. This isn't going far enough. But I understand Amazon just can't cut the price another $150-$200 further without looking completely desperate. But Amazon is desperate and they screwed up. This phone would've sold at $250-$300 contract free if Amazon had priced it there at launch. Now they're going to have to eat the losses and the phones and have a massive failure on their hands.

 

[Seven]

$199 off contract would be reasonable for this type of phone. Its not an Android, some sort of hybrid if you ask me, and how Amazon could have had priced at $649 off contract is beyond my knowledge.

 

[Red Storm]

Sign of terrible sales. Even free on contract is a rip off, this thing needs to be cheaper than even a Nexus off contract.

 

[isekii]

dropped faster than the HTC facebook phone no?

 

[vi edit]

Still $100 too much. And even then, I'm not interested in a device who's entire purpose is to peddle Amazon's wares to me in both blunt and and subtle ways.

 

[cronos]

1. This is the worst Amazon product, ever
2. By definition, <any price> on contract can never be considered a deal
3. This will forever be the worst Amazon product
4. There is no hope

signed,
Amazon Fan

 

[Eug]

Heh. I had actually forgotten that Fire Phone existed.

 

[luv2liv]

when i saw it debut. i knew it would fail. truly a joke. tbh, i thought the ipad would fail too. so what do i know

 

[Red Storm]

Amazon thought they could just show up with a phone many years after the smartphone revolution and go on their brand alone. Not even Microsoft could do it.

 

[kaerflog]

Isn't it funny that all of us geeks on a forum knew this phone was going to fail.
Kinda make me wonder how does a bunch of highly rich executives thought it was going to succeed ??
-$199 on contract = 100% fail.
-$99 on contract = ~95% fail.
-FREE/contract and $250/no contract, I would have gave it a bit more chance to succeed.
I wouldn't by that phone $250/no-contract right now.

 

[Eug]

^^^ Well, then again, most of us geeks like luv2liv thought the iPad would fail too.

For the record, I thought the iPad wouldn't fail, but would remain relatively niche at least for a couple of years. But that was also wrong.

I was surprised at the success of the original iPad, esp. given its lousy specs. I specifically waited for the iPad 2 because the original iPad's specs sucked. Mind you once it was updated, and once Adobe's flash really seemed to be dying a quick death, the iPad 2's even bigger success didn't seem as surprising.

I wonder what the sales numbers for the Fire Phone are like.

These guys claim it's only been about 35000 in the 3 weeks after launch, in July and August 2014. Ouch.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/26/amazon-fire-phone-sales-data

 

[Crono]

dropped faster than the HTC facebook phone no?

At least the First was a perfectly decent, mid-range Android phone with Home turned off. I don't know if there are as many Android users who will buy this phone even with substantial price cuts.

 

[Commodus]

You can really boil the Fire phone's problem down to one thing: it's designed to help Amazon, not users.

The home screen fills up valuable real estate with a section dedicated to purchase suggestions. Firefly is primarily there to help you find things you can buy on Amazon. Third-party apps? Features that would be useful on a day to day basis? They get shoved to the back. The Kindle Fire tablets sold well partly because of really good pricing, but the Fire phone didn't (and arguably still doesn't) even have that advantage.

Contrast that with Apple. It may have a walled garden where iTunes gets special treatment, but the interface is still pretty neutral. You can shove all the official apps out of the way if you prefer to browse in Chrome, check messages in Mailbox and play music through Spotify. When new features come in, they're rarely there solely to simplify spending cash with Apple.

 

[ponyo]

35,000 sales might even be generous. Ads tracked could be Amazon employee Fire phones. I'm curious how many Amazon built. Because the Fire phone is not going to sell now. It's over. Amazon needs to dump it all on Woot for $200 off contract. Even then it might be tough to move the phone. I still don't understand why Amazon deviated from their usual sell at cost or at slight loss model they used in the past with their tablets. What made Bezos think Amazon could sell this underwhelming phone at Apple/Samsung like premium? Ego? Greed? Very unAmazon like move.

 

[v8envy]

May not be completely the fault of the phone (though there are plenty of reports of battery-eating bugs and gimmicks not working very well).

This was an AT&T exclusive, which means it's a device targeted solely to the well-heeled customers not heavily invested in the iTunes app store -- a limited audience.

The ad campaign, airing mostly during children's shows that grownups rarely watch was intended to have kids talk their parents into getting this device. Trendy kids are all about iPhone, if it's not an i-device then you're just not fashionable. Waste of $.

Too bad. This is would have been a solid midrange contender if offered unlocked and off-contract in the $200 (a huge hit) to $300 (still a hit) range. A bit less phone than the Nexus5, but with the perks of Amazon Prime and custom software, and priced lower. They would have sold a ton more than the estimated 50k currently in the wild.

 

[xaeniac]

amazon meet your fail

 

[Roland00Address]

I do not understand why the execs thought it was going succeed, business 101 is that you if are new to an established market you must have something special to capture mind share. What did this phone had over Samsung or Apple on features or brand name, on price OEMS like LG and the Nexus has it beat.

What was going to sell this phone 3D?

 

[v8envy]

What was going to sell this phone 3D?

A few gimmicks (I get this, I love cool features to use when showing off my toys) plus ease of spending more money with Amazon. And a year of Prime.

What I think they will do is blow these out at $200-$250 unlocked and w/o Prime and the tech support app. They'll call it "Fire Phone Special Offers Edition."

 

[soccerballtux]

hot potato! nobody wants it! pass it around! it's on fire!

they botched the Kindle Fire gingerbread release IMO and I never bothered looking back. Nobody truly bothers ironing out the bugs in android. Then it was keyboard issues

 

[s44]

It's over. Amazon needs to dump it all on Woot for $200 off contract.

Given that Amazon bought Woot, I'm not sure how this hasn't happened yet.

Edit: It now occurs to me that they've probably spent more on ads for this thing than people have spent on buying it.

 

[squarecut1]

I have another Fire. The set top box. Apart from the fact that I have Xbmc on it (the reason I got it), it is the crappiest set top box I've used. Just terrible.