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If you want to try Firefox OS, head to eBay, the only place ZTE is selling the low-cost Open phone in the UK and US.
The ZTE Open will exclusively go on sale in orange on auction site eBay, costing £60 to Buy It Now in the UK and $80 in the US. It’ll be up for grabs “soon”, according to the Chinese company.
The Open sports a 3.5-inch touchscreen with a 480×320-pixel resolution. It’s powered by a Qualcomm processor with 256MB of RAM, a 3.2-megapixel camera and 512MB of storage.
Firefox OS is open-source software developed by Mozilla, the people behind the Firefox Web browser, to compete with Android. It’s designed to be easy for phone manufacturers and networks to customise, so they can sell cheap smart phones without being stuck with Android — and therefore beholden to Google.
ZTE and Alcatel are among the manufacturers giving Firefox OS a chance. Mozilla is also reported to have
got into bed with factory Foxconn to build a Firefox tablet.
British networks are yet to commit to Firefox OS, but I’m sure someone will give it a shot. Other rival operating systems that intend to break dependency on Android include Ubuntu Touch, currently trying to raise money for a prototype phone, and Samsung’s own Tizen, likely to be found on low-cost smart phones some time in the future.
Will you Buy It Now? Are you tempted to try something a bit different to Android? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook wall.
