Apple appears ready to join the tablet club with the upcoming iPhone 6 release, and is likely to shake up the market at the expense of Google Android-powered large-screen phones from Samsung, HTC and Sony. For Amazon, which announced the Fire phone, this may mean doom before its first-ever smartphone is available for purchase.

According to The Independent’s Adrian Weckler, the Fire is “an e-shopping machine masquerading as a high-end phone.” Seth Porges at Forbes says it is “less a phone … than it is a portal to Amazon shopping and services.”

Weckler is extremely cynical towards the Fire, suggesting that at a retail price similar to Samsung Galaxy S5 or iPhone 5, the Fire phone simply lacks any technology or features that would enable it compete. He calls Amazon’s upcoming device a “sure-fire dud.”

The Fire phone won’t have Google Maps or YouTube, but will feature Firefly, a scanner to buy items from Amazon’s marketplace. Customers can look at items in 3D, further encroaching on the brick-and-mortar shopping experience that Amazon has effectively competed against since its launch.

Amazon can do more, according to critics such as Weckler: “ If Amazon had paid attention to market trends, it should have copped that 3D is up there with voice-recognition technology as a consumer feature.”

Others don’t hold the same opinion. In fact, Arish Ali, CEO/co-founder of Skava, writes for VentureBeat that the Fire phone – with its Firefly instant shopping feature – is a potential game-changer for mobile retail. “If the Fire Phone gains traction, it could be a major boost for mobile shopping on all mobile devices, as the ‘one-click purchase’ feature could force the smartphone giants to make mobile shopping more integral to their OS experience,” Ali writes.