Smartphone Snapshot: New Offerings from Samsung, Amazon, and Apple's Anticipated iPhone 6

Amazon and Samsung debut new phones, while Apple-lovers wait for the latest iPhone iteration.

New phones from Samsung and Amazon are creating buzz in the summer smartphone market, as Apple’s devotees await the promise of a new iPhone in the fall.

According to Counterpoint Research’s report covering the second quarter of 2014, Samsung beat out Apple slightly, grabbing the overall mobile phone market and smartphone segment. Having launched its Galaxy S5 during that quarter, the company capitalized on a growing demand for that smartphone model, the report states.

The company debuted its Galaxy Alpha model on August 13, 2014 with little fanfare. The model is 1 of the high-end phones the company is expected to launch this summer, technology website CNET reports.

According to the press release on Samsung’s website, the phone runs Android KitKat OS, and features an Octa Core processor, 2GB Ram, and 32 GB internal memory. Users should note that the phone, unlike other Samsung models, has no micro SD slot.

Despite Samsung’s quarter 2 successes, Apple is expected to dominate the final quarter of 2014, Counterpoint Research reports. The company’s highly anticipated iPhone 6 is allegedly in its final test phase, according to an August 13, 2014 CNET post. However, the report cites conflicting dates from Chinese tech websites purporting to know when the phone will debut. Nevertheless, Apple is expected to unveil the phone on September 9, 2014, with a late September or early October rollout, the article states.

The notoriously tight-lipped company has not offered specifics about its phone, though it’s widely believed that new models will allow 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch display sizes.

Meanwhile, find-anything website Amazon entered the smartphone game with its Amazon Fire Phone, running its own, proprietary Fire OS. An August 12, 2014, post from TIME notes that the phone operating system draws its roots from Google’s open-source Android OS.

The phone boasts 3D visuals and a new OS, and allows one-handed operation. Several Amazon services are also embedded in the phone, including Kindle, Amazon Music, and Amazon Instant Video. Available apps include Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Instagram, Netflix, Pandora, and other entertainment apps—the company’s developer store boasts that apps available for Android should work on the Fire phone. Additional built-in apps include a map application, messaging, email, weather, and its Silk web browser.

The phone also features a 13-megapixel camera, a 2.2 GhZ quad-cre processor, 2 GB of RAM, and a 4.7-inch HD display.