According to a report from DigiTimes, Amazon’s oft-rumored smartphone will ship with a 4.7 inch display to keep up with the current smartphone market.
It looks as though Amazon was initially planning to make its upcoming smartphone with a 4.3 inch display, ” but later scrapped the idea after witnessing increased demand for larger size screens among consumers,” according to DigiTimes’ source.
The market has certainly changed since the HTC EVO launched. When the handset debuted on Sprint in late 2010, many claimed that the device was far too large without even trying it. That quickly changed, as it’s almost hard to find a high-end smartphone with a screen size smaller than 4.5 inches today. The one major exception being the iPhone 5.
The move of making the screen size larger on the “Kindle phone” is a smart one, but whether or not people actually want such a device is still up for debate. The Kindle Fire’s existence makes sense, as it provides a more simplified user interface than other Android tablets today, but do people really want a dumbed-down and Google-less Android smartphone in their pockets? This I don’t know. With such a variety of Android experiences available today, we just can’t imagine Amazon bringing an experience that’s unique enough for people to opt for it over something like the Galaxy S 4 or HTC One.
Then there’s price. The Kindle Fire has proven to be a great success for Amazon and the only way we could see the company have any sort of its tablet offering’s success is by making its smartphone incredibly cheap. Amazon showed the world that it was willing to lose money for every Kindle Fire purchase just to get it into the consumer’s hands, so we could see a similar strategy with its smartphone.
What do you say? Would you consider a super cheap “Kindle Phone” if it was lacking Google applications and Play Store, or is it a non-issue for you?
[DigiTimes via UnwiredView]