The ZTE Open is set to become the first Firefox OS-powered smartphone to be made available to consumers in the UK, after the Chinese manufacturer announced plans to sell the device through eBay.
The orange variant of the ZTE Open will cost £59.99 and will be unlocked for use on all UK phone operators, while consumers in the US will also be able to get their hands on the smartphone for $79.99.
The handset was first announced at Mobile World Congress earlier this year and is the first smartphone running Firefox OS to receive a commercial release, having been launched on Telefonica in Spain, Venezuela and Colombia.
However rather than a signal that carriers are not ready for Firefox OS, ZTE says it is using eBay so that as many people as possible are able to buy an affordable smartphone based entirely on open web standards.
“The ZTE Open offers customers a smartphone experience at an incredible price point, making it ideal for cost conscious consumers or those looking to upgrade to a smartphone for the first time,” said Dai Wenhong, vice president of ZTE.
“We are pleased that now we will put the full power of the Web in even more people’s hands,” added Li Gong, Mozilla senior vice president of Mobile Devices. “With a great potential user base, we know that even more developers around the world will create their apps with new APIs to stimulate an inspiring new wave of innovation.”
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This is cheap but nothing to what's coming!
In 2 years these (upgraded and even more functions) phones will be £10.
2015- Age of Robotics...robots will be commandable from phones, and human-like home robots hit and tumble in price like 3D printers whose age began in dec 2012.
2017 Age of Genomics...you'll zap illness phones detect.
2022 Age of Quantum Machines (under 100 naometres), Machine Intelligence, nanomachines, and
2027 Age of Superintelligence: the fone will do incredible stuff beyond scifi.
Companies like Vodaphone & IBM are already working on entanglement for quantum communication (no wires, no lot wireless signals!)