ZTE Firefox OS Smartphone Specs Emerge

By Zak Islam
published

Device is apparently based on Android-powered ZTE V788D smartphone.

Chinese manufacturer ZTE is reportedly working on a smartphone based on Mozilla’s Firefox mobile operating system, Boot to Gecko.

The smartphone will apparently utilize the same hardware template found in the Android-powered V788D. That phone features a 3.5-inch display that is capable of displaying a 800 x 480 pixel resolution. Other features includes 512MB of RAM, a 5-megapixel camera situated at the rear of the device, as well as a 1.5GHz system-on-chip.

Speculation suggests that Mozilla and ZTE have already commenced the distribution of prototypes to developers.

Firefox's operating system, which is based off a mobile platform centered around HTML5, supposedly consumes considerably less power than iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

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Zak Islam
10 Comments Comment from the forums
  • jacobdrj
    No Java? Excellent.
    More battery life? Sweet.
    No app ecosystem? Might as well be a feature-phone... ;-(
    Reply
  • codo
    Junk
    Reply
  • ttg_Avenged
    A OS consisting of mostly HTML5? Go on...
    Reply
  • Camikazi
    lostmyclaneverytime I istall java on my pc i need re-install the windows. lot of bugs, why the hell i want a phone with java? i want a phone to call some one. not for playing bubble breakerThen you want a feature phone or a dumb phone since those are good at phone calls but can't do much else.
    Reply
  • sanjiro
    This seems like a good entry level phone, somewhere in between a feature phone and a regular smartphone. You'd be able to use this type of phone to surf the web, make/receive calls/text, get your emails and use some html5 apps. Obviously lower potential than android, but should handle the basics of smartphone fairly well.
    Reply
  • sykozis
    jacobdrjNo Java? Excellent. More battery life? Sweet.No app ecosystem? Might as well be a feature-phone... ;-(How exactly is FFOS supposed to have an "app ecosystem" if nobody has been able to get their hands on it to develop apps for it?

    sanjiroThis seems like a good entry level phone, somewhere in between a feature phone and a regular smartphone. You'd be able to use this type of phone to surf the web, make/receive calls/text, get your emails and use some html5 apps. Obviously lower potential than android, but should handle the basics of smartphone fairly well.FFOS is starting where Android is heading....HTML5 based apps. HTML5 has the advantage of being platform independent, which means apps developed for FFOS will also run on Android, iOS, WP7/8, and BB OS.
    Reply
  • It's Javascript not Java. HUGE difference.
    Reply
  • jerm1027
    I'd love to play around with Mozilla's new OS. Everything I love: Open-source, uses open standards, and efficient. But I'm not sure if I'm willing to give up Android just yet, especially considering how awesome the custom ROMs are these days.
    Reply
  • slacka
    "No Java? Excellent." Are you kidding me? You really think a hodgepodge of HTML+CSS+JavaScript is going to perform better than Java? As someone who switched from a browser based OS, WebOS, to iPhone 3GS, and now to Android, I can tell you I will never go back to another laggy HTML based OS. If anything, I’d like to see Android move away from its VM based apps to something like Apple’s native apps. Many apps ran better on my 3GS than they do on my much more powerful S3. Mozilla is going the wrong direction on this one.

    Native > Java > HTML+CSS+JavaScript

    The whole idea of using HTML, CCS, and JavaScript as the back end technology for a low-end smartphone is nuts. Even the best HTML rendering engines are CPU and memory hogs. CSS was never designed for and is nearly impossible to hardware accelerate, and JavaScript is notoriously difficult to optimize and even the best VMs like V8 run orders of magnitude slower then Native code, while the JS VM itself takes up a massive amount of memory relative to Java VMs.

    I get that Mozilla wants to put Firefox on a phone. Fine, but first, focus one building a competitive browser. At the end of the day, I want a responsive fast phone, like the iPhone or Galaxy S3, not some dog slow HTML monstrosity.

    Mozilla please just invest your limited resources on making a lean browser that can compete with Chrome!
    Reply
  • slacka
    sykozis
    HTML5 has the disadvantage as being orders of Magnitude slower than Native Apps. Don't believe me? Try it for yourself. Download "Cube 2: Sauerbraten" and try Mozilla's port called BananaBread. My rig gets:
    Cube 2: Sauerbraten - 200fps (think it's cap'd)
    BananaBread in Firefox - 14-18fps

    Even with WebGL's "hardware Acceleration" HTML5 just can't compete with native Apps. Now please tell my why the hell you'd want to put this on their target market, "low end smartphone"? Give me a responsive Native OS any day.
    Reply