Amazon smartphone photos emerge

BGR has published new details of Amazon’s much-rumoured smartphone along with a number photos of the device, albeit in a protective casing which hides the phone’s exterior design.

According to the new report, Amazon’s “Duke” smartphone, as TechCrunch reports it is called internally, will have a 4.7-inch 720p display, 2GB RAM, and run on a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip of some kind.

As with its larger cousins, the Kindle Fire tablet PCs, Duke will run on Amazon’s FireOS, a forked version of Google’s Android mobile operating system.

Notably, the smartphone will have six cameras in total, according to the report.

Its rear will be graced with one 13 megapixel camera, while the front will have five cameras: one on each corner, and one for video calling (and selfies not taken in a mirror).

Both BGR and TechCrunch report that these additional front-facing cameras will be used as inputs for Amazon’s new 3D user experience, which is to set it apart from other manufacturers.

Armed with these cameras the device can reportedly offer a glasses-free 3D experience that also doesn’t need a parallax barrier like those used by Nintendo on its 3DS line of handheld video game consoles.

However, the reports disagree on just how integral the glasses-free 3D effects will be to the overall user experience of Amazon’s new device.

TechCrunch, citing “a source with first-hand experience of the company’s mobile ambitions” said the 3D features would be reserved for a few built-in gestures.

BGR, citing “multiple trusted sources” said that the 3D interface would used in special lock screen wallpapers, application icons “and other core elements of the user interface”, and Amazon’s various stores.

Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that Amazon will announce its new phone by June and will ship it by September 2014.

A second, lower cost device will launch thereafter, BGR reported.

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