Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos touts Fire Phone’s services at the Seattle launch event. Photo: Roberto Baldwin/The Next Web

Jeff Bezos may be ready to roast the Galaxy and iPhone with his much-discussed Amazon Fire Phone, but judging from the first round of reviews, the handset is more of a damp squib than a firestarter.

Ahead of the smartphone’s launch tomorrow, and with the embargo lifted on the early review unit handsets, we’ve finally got an idea of how Bezos’ intriguing pet project has panned out.

And, unfortunately, “panned” seems to be the right word to describe it.

Amazon has released its first commercial for the Fire Phone, and it’s focused on the free 12-month Prime subscription that comes bundled with it. There’s also a brief mention of some of the apps that will be available for the device at launch, including Skype, Twitter, and Minecraft.

The official Android L keyboard, which was released and then pulled from Google Play earlier this month, is now back. In an effort to avoid another run in with Google, however, the developer behind the release has chosen to make it available through the Amazon Appstore this time instead.

Unlimited music streaming services are still struggling to make a profit, but Amazon is turning to its bread and butter for its next subscription service: Books.

Amazon is testing a new ebook and audiobook service that will give subscribers unlimited access to over 600,000 titles, according to spotting by Kindle Book forum users, but it won’t come with your Amazon Prime subscription.

Amazon’s Android AppStore might not be as popular as the Play Store, but the company sure does hold some tempting sales every once in a while to attract consumers.

Today, Amazon has announced that it is holding a weekend sale on its AppStore where it will be giving away 31 apps worth up to $100 for free.