Amazon Fire Teardown

Preliminary Teardown analysis suggests that Amazon's $649.00 phone costs $209.00 to build. Qualcomm is the primary provider of many of the key integrated circuits, and both Invensense and OmniVision are noted for their role in delivering Amazon's Dynamic Perspective display technology.

Based on our analysis and costing, this phone is on par with many competitors from a technology design and premium pricing perspective. The phone's price (and bill of materials cost) is in-line with competitors like the Samsung Galaxy S5 and the Apple iPhone 5s.

Amazon has undoubtedly invested heavily in software features that are not included in this BOM costing estimate, most notably the software behind the Dynamic Perspective display feature. To understand the inner workings of the hardware needed to support this new feature, Teardown.com looks inside at the design and chipsets needed to enable this high-performance phone and the new experience it promises the mobile phone market.

Amazon's Fire Phone enters the mobile market from AT&T (a similar strategy applied by Apple in 2007) and through direct sales via Amazon.com. Just like the first iPhone, and those that have followed since, the Teardown.com team has wasted no time analyzing the Fire Phone to discern what choices the vendor made from a design, technology, assembly, and chipset perspective to bring its flagship device to market.

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