ZTE Starts Sales of Open C Firefox OS Phone on eBay

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/05/08/zte-starts-sales-of-open-c-firefox-os-phone-on-ebay

by conductor • 12 years ago

86 62 12 years ago

blog.mozilla.org

bananas• 12 years ago

This is £70 in the UK. That nets you a Lumia 520 as a comparison point. For £30 more you can get an 8Gb Moto G.

I can't see it selling here.

ExpiredLink• 12 years ago

Targeted at ... early adopters wanting to try out Firefox OS ...

morsch• 12 years ago

Almost identical specs as a Lumia 520, too. 4 GB storage instead of 8 GB (both extensible via sd). Even for a low budget phone, I don't get why they don't go with at least 16 GB. 4 GB is pathetic.

http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=6155&idPhone2=...

lucaspiller• 12 years ago

It's even closer to the Nokia X. Once you've installed Google Play that's not bad, and abroad you can pick up the dual SIM version.

The Nokia Store is missing pretty basic apps so provides a selection of third party stores for you to install. Alternatively you can sideload Google Play services.

fred_durst7• 12 years ago

I was unaware you could run Firefox OS on a Lumia 520. Do you have a link that describes how to do that? Or is there a vendor selling Lumia 520's with Firefox OS? I also have not seen Moto G's running Firefox OS.

EDIT: Possibly I should add some context to my question. I'm not sure why the comment is comparing a phone running a different operating system and different software. So I thought maybe these other phones could run Firefox OS and I just didn't know. I've been using Firefox OS for about a year and would not want to use a phone on a different OS. The article was about a new version of a Firefox OS phone.

pjmlp3• 12 years ago

It is called a browser.

Usually comes integrated in all mobile operating systems, alongside the native apps.

pjmlp3• 12 years ago

Same in Germany. Android 4.1 devices like the Samsung Galaxy Young are available for 70 € already.

Native App + Browsers Apps + Skype + Whatsapp + Viber + ....

darklajid• 12 years ago

A matter of requirements and principles. I'm currently discussing that change in my family, because I don't need

- Skype

- Whatsapp

- Viber

and the browser of choice is Firefox (actually Aurora on Android, but yeah). I guess I'd trade my S3 for one of these.

glogla4• 12 years ago

Here in Czech Republic (which is semi-eastern europe), Lumia 520 is 50 % more expensive than ZTE Open C, and 8 GB Moto G is twice the price.

Now, Lumia 520 has better camera and perhaps better screen and CPU, and Moto G is whole different matter (720p, quadcore, 1 GB RAM), so the prices make sense. The cheap Chinese devices that you can get for the same money (like Huawei Y330) have generally the same hardware, so I don't think ZTE is overpricing the ZTE Open C.

So, while I can't give you prices, it's possible that the ZTE Open C is more competitive in markets like Eastern Europe or South America.

EDIT: the reason to get ZTE Open C instead of say, Lumia 520 or Huawei Y330 would be that FxOS devices should have better browser performance for the money, at least from the impressions from the SVG comparison video, and the browser seems to be much better integrated to the system than on Android or Windows Phone.

dpcan2• 12 years ago

Hope it's noticeably faster than the ZTE Open which I couldn't realistically use for day to day applications due to the lag and that it never updated to the latest Firefox OS and I had trouble doing it manually because I didn't know which build to flash my device with (lingo?)

Going to give this one a try.

So far, 2 Firefox phones and I haven't paid as much as I did for my 1 Android. So technically, I can still justify trying 1 more version of the ZTE phone if it comes out for around $99 in the next year or so :)

I keep trying though because I just love the idea that I can use my current web development skill set to create native apps for this so easily. My first attempts on the ZTE Open went really well.

ekr• 12 years ago

I keep trying though because I just love the idea that I can use my current web development skill set to create native apps for this so easily. My first attempts on the ZTE Open went really well.

I'd say those apps are hardly native, now, are they? There are several layers between the code you write, and the actual ARM(in most cases) machine code.

highwind• 12 years ago

Then, I'd argue that writing iOS app in Objective C is not native because there are several layers between Obj-C and the Apple A7 cpu.

There might be more layers on Firefox OS than iOS, but I'd take more abstraction layer than write speedy "native" code any day.

diggan• 12 years ago

Native depends on the platform. Firefox OS is all in HTML, CSS and JavaScript so an application containing those languages would in fact be native for Firefox OS.

dpcan2• 12 years ago

That's the beauty. "Native" for Firefox OS IS HTML/CSS/JS. I like that about it.

daleharvey• 12 years ago

For people who are interested in being able to develop on the device and flash new builds, I would suggest waiting a little longer for the reference device

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/02/23/new-developer-hardw...

It is due to be shipped soon, is going to be used widely internally for development and full public builds / a good dev experience has been promised.

diafygi5• 12 years ago

Do you know how much it will cost?

01Michael10• 12 years ago

I remember reading $179 for the Firefox OS Flame developer reference phone somewhere but Google is letting me down and can't find the post...

glogla4• 12 years ago

The Mozilla page [1] says 170 USD including global shipping.

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Developer_pho...

praeivis• 12 years ago

It cost only $99,99 if you are from US.

diafygi5• 12 years ago

The previous generation (ZTE Open) started at $79 and is now $69. This price point was so impressive for the html5 capabilities that it had. I even did a presentation on it's SVG performance vs. a similar Android device[1].

I'm concerned about the increased $99 price point. I thought the target market for Firefox OS was the developing world, where they could release extremely low cost phones ($50-$80) that can run the full gamut of html5 (vs. Android that is stuck in 2.3 for phones this cheap). Why release new phones that won't see as much adoption (because of the higher price)?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3MU3jxEye8

nnethercote2• 12 years ago

Don't panic. We're actively working on the $25 dollar phone that was reported earlier in the year (e.g. http://www.cnet.com/news/with-firefox-os-mozilla-begins-the-...). So there will be quite the range of price points to be had.

darthgoogle• 12 years ago

Do you know if the phone will work with T-Mobile's 3G data?

Would be useful if potential customers could quickly see in a table which carriers are supported and upto what data speeds.

diafygi5• 12 years ago

Woo! Great news! One of benefits of having cheap devices is that it significantly lowers the barrier to entry for the developer community. It becomes super encouraging to pick up a phone just to fiddle.

However, one of the biggest problems the community ran into for the ZTE Open was that hardly any Mozilla devs had one. So even though it was the most easily obtainable phone for the dev community, it received very little Mozilla support.

As these low-end devices push the limits the most for Firefox OS, will the Mozilla team start to work with them more?

kllrnohj2• 12 years ago

This price point was so impressive for the html5 capabilities that it had.

No, it isn't. The price is standard, or even high, for the hardware it has. And the hardware is pretty crap (hence why the performance was also crap).

All phones have equal HTML5 capabilities, the difference is what you can do while getting good performance. And the answer to that on the ZTE Open was "not a damn thing", because it never had good performance.

diafygi5• 12 years ago

Agreed that the hardware was on par or slightly lower than other $80 smartphones. However, phones with that hardware can only run Android 2.3, which severely limits your html5 capabilities. The presentation I linked above was comparing the svg performance between Firefox OS and Android.

batmansbelt2• 12 years ago

That's an exceptional value. So cheap for such good features. And the firefox marketplace has lots of great apps. FirefoxOS really seems to be taking off, particularly in Latin America.

octopus• 12 years ago

Do you have any comparison charts between Firefox OS usage and iOS/Android in South America ?

batmansbelt2• 12 years ago

Just for downloads of my apps (games mostly). More action in the firefox marketplace. Maybe just because Play Store is bigger pond.

msh2• 12 years ago

I don't see how this is exceptional value. Same hardware as Lumia 520 or Sony e1 (Android 4.3) for approximate the same price.

13throwaway• 12 years ago

Do these have an isolated modem? What is the status on running other OSs on this?

seba_dos1• 12 years ago

ZTE Open is as closed and undocumented as your typical Android phone. Dunno about Open C, but I wouldn't expect it to be any different.

aaronbrethorst• 12 years ago

144 sold in the United States, hmm. http://item.ebay.com/291125433026

zengr• 12 years ago

ZTE's eBay Store front: http://www.ebay.com/sch/zte_us/m.html

climatewarrior2• 12 years ago

Does anybody know if it supports Sprint in the US?

abus• 12 years ago

I would buy this if it had a front facing camera.

tango2• 12 years ago

FEATURE Media : Ability to use device speakers with the FM radio app

Really mozilla? Sorry, I would happily donate $99to Mozilla foundation than buying

fabrice_d• 12 years ago

Please do contribute! Mozilla is not selling these phones, ZTE is.

FM Radio is actually a very important feature in many markets that are not US/Europe. That was a surprise for us too!

glogla4• 12 years ago

Here's a semi-review by someone who has had the phone for a week [1]. It is not the most professional of reviews, but it could give you some impressions how the phone feels.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wB_KLWJQPM

noisy_boy• 12 years ago

I didn't see any mention of filesystem access on this phone - can someone comment on that?

Edit: I went this comment[1] and the reviewer shows that file manager apps can be downloaded.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7724972

ZTE Starts Sales of Open C Firefox OS Phone on eBay

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