Hasta La Gadget!

The mobile space has just gotten a whole lot more interesting in recent years, where previous 800 lbs gorillas that seemed “untouchable” are now struggling, with BlackBerry coming to mind as the main example, while Nokia, to a lesser extent, has seen their dominance in the phone market obliterated by the likes of Apple and Samsung. Not only that, the mobile operating system front has also changed a fair bit, where iOS and Android now dominate the market, with a small percentage of the share held by Windows Phone 8 and to an even smaller extent, BlackBerry 10. Firefox, a name that is more often than not associated with browsers, have decided to take the plunge into the smartphone market by introducing the Firefox OS mobile operating system, and the ZTE Open is the handset to go along with it.

We have just received word that the ZTE Open will be available for sale soon on eBay US and UK, which is pretty fast considering how it is just one month after the smartphone’s commercial launch. Before the US and the UK, however, the ZTE Open has already been made available over at Telefónica in Spain, Venezuela and Colombia, and for the first time in the UK, the ZTE Open will be made available on Orange with a price tag of $79.99 (£59.99), where this handset will hit the market as an unlocked device, which means it can be used on all mobile networks.

The global availability of the ZTE Open via eBay might be a great move for those who have always been on the lookout for an affordable smartphone that is based wholly on open web standards, but never really had the chance to do so. Some of the functions found on the ZTE Open include the basics – calls, messaging, email, and camera, in addition to built-in social integration with Facebook and Twitter, location-based services such as Nokia HERE maps, as well as the well loved Firefox Web browser and the Firefox Marketplace. Any takers?

Press Release
[ ZTE Open Firefox OS phone to be sold on eBay US and UK copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Yes, the ZTE Open is hauling its laggy self to America by way of the manufacturer’s eBay store. Early adopters who want to get a head start with Firefox OS, or regular buyers looking for a cheap device that can handle things like Nokia HERE maps and social networking integration, will be able to Buy It Now for $79.99 (or £59.99 in the eBay UK store). They’ll receive the unlocked, global variant of the Open, which is “not optimized for specific networks,” and they’ll get it in the orange color scheme that will be exclusive to eBay. There’s no sign of the fixed-price listing on the auction site as yet, and we’re not sure exactly when it’ll go live, but people are already bidding on an official-looking import from Hong Kong, for which the price currently stands at $51 including P&P.

Update: We originally reported that this phone would “exclusively” be available on eBay, but that’s only half true — it looks like the exclusivity solely applies to the orange-colored variant in the US, so we’ve fixed the article to reflect that.

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Source: ZTE, Mozilla

When Mozilla said devices running Firefox OS would be cheap, we didn’t know they’d be this cheap. Telefónica has just tweeted that the ZTE Open will be launching in Spain tomorrow for €69, which translates to around $90 and is a good $30 less than the cheapest developer unit we’d seen until now. And here’s where it gets pretty wild: that price includes €30 ($39) of airtime for prepaid customers. When we played with the Open back in February at Mobile World Congress, we weren’t exactly blown away by it, but we’re arguably not the target demographic. The real question is whether Spaniards will be willing to sacrifice access to Google’s services and ecosystem with devices like the Vodafone Smart Mini now selling for as little as €49 ($65).

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Source: Telefonica Digital

Remember that ZTE teased the MWC debut of its upcoming Firefox OS phone? Well, according to this spec sheet spotted by a tipster at ZTE’s MWC booth, said device will be appropriately named ZTE Open, and it’ll come with a moderate set of components: a Cortex-A5-based Qualcomm MSM7225A (which is known to clock at either 600MHz or 800MHz), a 3.5-inch HVGA TFT display with capacitive touchscreen, 256MB DDR SDRAM, 512MB NAND storage and the usual set of radios like WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 (with EDR3), GPS and FM radio. Interestingly, there will be a 3.2-megapixel front-facing camera, but it appears that there’ll be none on the back. The Open will be available in three SKUs with different UMTS bands: 850/1900, 850/2100 and 900/2100. As always, we’ll be sharing the full announcement and hands-on once we see the phone at MWC, though we have a feeling that we’ve already played with it before.

Update: As some of you have pointed out, yes, the “FF” may actually mean “fixed focus” instead of “front-facing,” and the former seems more likely.

[Thanks, anonymous]

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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