Bold. That's the word that comes to mind when we consider Amazon's Fire Phone. In a world where precious little has happened in the smartphone space over the past few years, at least in terms of groundbreaking innovation, Amazon's entrance provides all the spark you need to sit up and pay attention.

So what's Amazon, predominantly an online e-tailer, doing jumping into this Lion's den of a market space? The Fire Phone is the company's first foray into the cutthroat world of handsets, but it's far from its first rodeo in mobile hardware. The company has seen terrific success in the e-reader world with its famed Kindle line, and it has even garnered mainstream respect with its well-priced Kindle Fire tablets. Smartphones, however, are different. The lines in the sand have been drawn, and the new Fire Phone runs a forked version of Android that looks and feels almost nothing like the version you?d see on any other flagship Android phone.

Despite consumers barking for differentiation, the masses continue to buy new iPhones and Galaxy phones to replace older versions of the same families. Is Amazon's Fire Phone different enough to break the cycle? Let's find out in the pages ahead...