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April 15, 2014

Revealed! – Is this Amazon’s first smartphone?

4.7in unnamed device with glasses-free 3D display set to launch later this year.

By Vinod

Amazon phone

Photos have emerged purporting to show Amazon’s first ever smartphone, which will reportedly launch in the next few months.

The device, one of two currently being manufactured by Amazon, was exclusively revealed by US technology site BGR, which says it has spoken with "multiple trusted sources" within the company to confirm the authenticity of the photos and the details taken from them.

The images show the phone covered by a protective shell, which is intended to prevent unauthorised outsiders from seeing the physical design of the phone, but the site has managed to obtain several details on the device.

BGR Amazon Phone

Most intriguingly, it seems that the phone, which has apparently been in development for several years, will contain a 3D display which can be viewed without the need for special glasses.

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This had been previously reported last week by the Wall Street Journal, which said that the phone would be able to display 3D images by employing "retina-tracking technology embedded in four front-facing cameras, or sensors, to make some images appear to be 3-D, similar to a hologram."

The device will reportedly include six cameras, partly to create these 3D images, with a main rear camera featuring a resolution of 13MP and a standard 2MP front camera. The other four cameras will apparently be used to track a user’s face and eyes in relation to the phone’s display, and then adjust the range of 3D services on-screen accordingly.

The screen itself will be a 4.7in 720px HD display, which is slightly smaller and less powerful than those in the recently announced Samsung Galaxy S5 and HTC One M8 devices, which feature 5.1in 1080px HD displays, but a similar size to recent rumours of the upcoming iPhone 6.

It will be powered by an unspecified Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, backed up with 2GB of RAM. The phone will run a heavily customized version of Google’s Android operating system, similar to the versions that currently power Amazon’s tablets.

BGR Amazon Phone

As well as the high-end phone revealed today, Amazon is also reportedly working on a lower-end device, featuring less powerful components and a lower price to attract budget-minded customers. This latter device will launch a few months after the initial Amazon phone, with more details hopefully being released soon.

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