Firefox is all set to compete with the likes of Android and iOS with its very own Firefox OS for smartphone. The first smartphone featuring the Firefox operating system, ZTE Open, will be available this week in Spain for only $90 (69 euros). Mozilla did say earlier that they are planning to release cheap Firefox OS featured phones but we weren’t expecting a $90 price tag. Let’s see if the first Firefox OS based phone is worth trying or not.
Firefox OS
The user interface looks quite similar to iOS and Android’s user interface. There are four main function buttons in the bottom of the screen to access phone, messages, email and browser. You can customize these icons if you want. Applications are also arranged on a grid style like we see on other smartphones and users have to scroll left and right to see other installed apps.
All the commons apps like music player, camera, photo gallery, video player, FM radio are available in the OS. Some third party apps are also available like Facebook, Twitter, Accu Weather, Poppit and other necessary apps can be downloaded from Firefox Marketplace. The app store is not filled with apps which is going to be a big challenge for Mozilla if they really want to compete with Google Playstore or Apple App Store.
Hardware
The ZTE Open comes with 256MB of RAM and 512MB of on board memory. It’s not good enough to run a phone without lag but this phone did quite well in the short test. All the installed apps worked quickly and the touchscreen was also good. It’s good comparing to the “Gingerbread” running phones. However, these are just entry level phones so don’t expect the high-end smartphone like smoothness from it.
Specs
The first Firefox OS based phone features a 3.5-inch HVGA TFT touchscreen, 3.2 megapixel camera, 4GB microSD card and other common features like FM Radio, email reader and built-in Firefox web browser. Apps like Wikipedia, Time Out and Huffington Post are already available in the app store but you have to wait for a while to get all the popular apps from other stores.
Price and Release Info
Mozilla’s first Firefox OS based phone will be available at an attractive price tag of $90 (69 Euro) in Spain and Telefónica is launching the ZTE Open with another Mozilla OS based set from Alcatel called One Touch Fire. “This is just the beginning as we plan to bring a wide range of Firefox OS devices to our customers”, that’s what the CEO of Telefónica España, Luis Miguel Gilpérez said when launching the device. It’s not confirmed yet when Mozilla is planning to release them in other markets.
Some more Firefox OS based handsets are also on board and big companies like Sony and LG are currently working on it. If you are not interested to try the Firefox OS in an entry level handset, you can wait for the upcoming Firefox OS based high-end smartphones.
Popular open source web browser giant has joined the bandwagon of Smart Phone Operating Systems with its Firefox OS to compete with iOS, Android, Windows and Symbian. Mozilla today 
Firefox OS intends to use the maximum out of HTML 5 with ‘new phone architecture where every phone feature (calling, messaging, games, etc.) is an HTML5 application.’ The work started last year under the project “Boot to Gecko” that allows ‘HTML5 applications to access the underlying capabilities of a phone, previously only available to native applications.’
Last few years have shown a number of smart phone OS failures such as Bada, Meego, Palm etc that simply could not make a decent cut in to the mobile OS which is heavily dominated by iOS and Android. It would be interesting to see if Firefox OS could make a cut into the pie. For this we have to wait till 2013 when it will be released in Brazil which is an emerging mobile market with lots of prospect to grow as it is less penetrated by Android and iOS.