There’s also Firefly, with which you point your camera at physical world posters, notes and even TV shows in order to save new contacts, make phone calls, send emails and visit websites without having to type in any details. It can even perform OCR in magazines, or on posters to identify text. It’s probably best thought of as a ‘universal Shazam’, recognising movies and TV episodes and even live TV, then using information from IMDb to show information on actors and related details so you can add titles to your watchlist. Sound good? Well you can’t have it. (Okay you can, but you’ll have to read on.) Buying the hardware is easy. Ideally you need a friend who lives in the US, because the easiest and cheapest method is to get someone over there to buy your Fire Phone, and then ship it to you. Either way, you should also be aware that you may be required to pay duty to import your Fire Phone into the UK. If it is posted to you the package will likely be opened, and you will get a letter requiring additional payment. If you carry it through customs you will likely get away with it, but we couldn’t possibly recommend that. Even in the US the Fire Phone is locked to AT&T, so in order to use your phone as a phone in the UK you will need to get it unlocked (or use it with Wi-Fi only). Elsewhere on these pages I’ve written a detailed feature on how to unlock a phone, but suffice to say there are two methods and neither is guaranteed to work. You can source and use an unlock code, or use a cable to connect to an unlock server. The former will likely be tricky for a phone that is not available in the UK, but is worth a try. You are more likely to have success with a cable, if you can find one. And a third-party phone unlock store may be your friend here. But buyer beware: this a phone that is locked down in the US, so there is no guarantee that you will be able to unlock it to use with UK SIMs. The good news is that a failed unlock attempt is unlikely to damage your Fire Phone. So the question is not can you buy a Fire Phone in the UK, but why would you? (See also: The 30 best smartphones: The best phone you can buy
Matt Egan is Global Editorial Director of IDG, publisher of Tech Advisor, and a passionate technology fan who writes on subjects as diverse as smartphones, internet security, social media and Windows.
