Seeing its grand plans to launch a mobile shopping device go up in flames, Android Police reports that Amazon has decided to sell its Fire Phone without a contract at $199 for the 32GB GSM version through Cyber Monday, after having previously offered an unlocked version at $650 off contract to AT&T customers.
A little history: since the Fire Phone was first unveiled in June at $199 with a 2-year AT&T contract, the device failed to meet sales targets, and its price came tumbling down to 99 cents in September . In October, Amazon revealed that it was sitting on $83 million in unsold Fire phones.
The move to sell the device unlocked at $199 is no doubt aimed at recouping losses, but that’s going to prove difficult since the Fire Phone’s specs place it alongside similarly powered devices like the 2014 Moto G, albeit at a higher price. And since it’s running Amazon’s custom Android build, it doesn’t include Google services or even the Google Play app ecosystem.
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However, it does come with a year of Amazon Prime, valued at $99, that lets customers stream unlimited music, TV shows and movies from Amazon’s library, save as many photos as they like in the company’s cloud storage service and have their Amazon orders shipped in two days — so, if you’re planning to make use of that and don’t mind a Google-less Android device, this might interest you.
The unlocked Fire Phone is available on Amazon here.
➤ [Fire Sale] Amazon Admits Defeat, Now Offering Unlocked 32GB Fire Phone For $199 With No Contract [Android Police]
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