Firefox OS phone -- the inexpensive ZTE Open. The launch is a
significant milestone in Mozilla's attempt to crack the Apple and
Google mobile strongholds.
It's not every day that a new mobile operating system arrives, but
Tuesday will be one of them as Telefonica begins selling the
inexpensive ZTE Open with Mozilla's Firefox OS in Spain.
The move marks the commercial beginning of an effort by phone makers
and network operators to use Mozilla's open-source, browser-based
operating system to reclaim power in the mobile market lost to Apple
and Google.
The phone itself costs 69 euros ($90), including 30 euros ($39) of
pay-as-you-go credit -- or for those who sign up for a two-year
contract, for 2.38 euros ($3.10) per month. That's a lot cheaper than
most of the new Android and iOS smartphones on the market today that
consumers have flocked to and that Firefox OS is competing with.
The ZTE Open won't impress smartphone power users who want more than
its 3.5-inch 480x320-pixel touchscreen, 3.2MP camera, 256MB RAM, and
512MB flash memory that's boosted with an included 4GB microSD card.
But it's not designed to win them over; it's more for new and
cost-conscious smartphone buyers, Yotam Benami, Telefonica's digital
director of open Web devices, said in an interview.
read more at http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57591716-94/firefox-os-phone-launches-tuesday-in-spain-at-$3-a-month/