Amazon slashes Fire smartphone to $199 for Black Friday

By Staff Reporter - 26 Nov '14 13:52PM

Amazon has slashed the price for its unlocked Fire smartphone by 69 percent just four months after the phone first debuted for sale.

However, Amazon says the $199 price is "for a limited time." It is set to run through at least Cyber Monday along with some discounts on Kindle e-readers and Kindle Fire tablets.

A fully unlocked Fire Phone now retails for $199.00, instead of $449.00.

Before Tuesday's change, Amazon had already slashed the price (in September) from $649 to $449. That same month, the locked -- or subsidized -- price with AT&T on a two-year contract went from $199 to 99 cents for the 32GB model. That price continues today.

Making it an even better deal, Amazon is still including a year of free Amazon Prime, meaning that for those who are already paying for Prime or looking to sign up, the phone is really just $99 extra with no need for a contract.

The GSM device is still U.S.-only, which means it'll work with AT&T and T-Mobile, though not Verizon and Sprint.

Poor Fire phone reviews by customers, testers and analysts appear to have taken their toll on sales, leaving $83 million worth of unsold phones at the end of October.

In addition to the price cut, Amazon deleted thousands of customer reviews of the product, leaving up only reviews posted since the price cut went into effect.

By comparison, customer reviews back in late October scored the device with just 2.4 stars out of five, based on nearly 4,000 reviews.