Amazon launches Fire phone in UK & Germany, drops price on contract in US

E-retail giant Amazon has announced the launch of its first smartphone “Fire” in the UK. The smartphone is now on pre-order on telecom operator O2 in the country. It will cost £0 upfront on the £33 tariff with O2 Refresh. You can find more details about plans and pricing at Amazon UK or O2 UK website. The retailer has also stated that it will be offering one year of Prime membership to everyone, who buys the phone until the end of this year. The phone will start shipping on September 30.

Update: Amazon has also released the Fire phone in Germany where it will be offered by Deutsche Telekom for €1 with monthly tariffs starting at €44.95.

“We’ve packed a lot of value into our first smartphone and we are delighted to bring Fire to customers in the United Kingdom. Fire is a premium phone with breakthrough technologies Dynamic Perspective and Firefly, access to exclusive features including live video tech support with the Mayday button and free unlimited cloud photo storage, plus a full year of Prime membership—for £0 on the £33 O2 Refresh tariff only from O2,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder and CEO.

Originally unveiled in June this year, Amazon Fire phone features a 4.7-inch HD IPS display and is powered by 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor.  The phone also comes with 2GB of RAM, 13MP rear camera with OIS and a 2.4MP front camera. You can read more details about the phone in this report.

In related news, Amazon has dropped the price of Fire phone in the US on AT&T, which is exclusively carrying the phone. The phone can now be grabbed for just 99 cents with the usual contract. The latest pricing also includes free year of Prime membership.