Firefox OS arrives in Latin America on Movistar network

Posted on 01/08/2013 by Jon Fingas

To date, Firefox OS has only had a presence in Europe. Now, it's now venturing overseas to Latin America with a launch on Movistar. Both Colombians and Venezuelans can buy the Alcatel OneTouch Fire and ZTE Open from the carrier today. Whether or not the phones represent bargains will depend on the country, however. Venezuelans wanting the OneTouch Fire and Open will have to buy them at steep respective prices of 1,739BEF ($277) and 1,159BEF ($184) on contract, while Colombians can buy either device for 199,900 pesos ($106) prepaid or 99,900 pesos ($53) on a one-year agreement. We're still months away from the release of Firefox OS phones in the US, but the Latin American launch at least gets us one step closer.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: Telefonica, The Mozilla Blog

Firefox OS hands-on: Alcatel OneTouch Fire and ZTE Open (video)

Posted on 01/07/2013 by Myriam Joire

We've crossed paths with Firefox OS before, but today marks the first time we've played with handsets running the final build of Mozilla's mobile software. The Alcatel OneTouch Fire and ZTE Open you see above are the same hardware we saw at MWC earlier this year -- in fact, the latter just launched in Spain on Telefónica for €69 ($90) contract-free including €30 ($39) of airtime for prepaid customers. We took both phones for a brief spin and immediately noticed a slight improvement in performance. Unfortunately, there's still a significant amount of lag in the UI, especially when scrolling through web pages and navigating the app tray. Websites also take a while to load, even when connecting over Wi-Fi. Then again, what do you expect for €69? Check out the gallery below and hit the break to watch our hands-on video.

Note: the ZTE Open we handled was destined for Movistar (a Telefónica brand) and is launching today for €69 (not €63 as mentioned in our video).

Gallery: Firefox OS hands-on

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Alcatel One Touch Fire joins the Firefox OS cuddle party, we go hands-on (video)

Posted on 24/02/2013 by Richard Lai

ZTE may have had a head start in the Firefox OS race ahead of MWC, but Alcatel's also got something similar to ride on the waves of some "500 million Mozilla users." Suitably dubbed the One Touch Fire, this entry-level phone is basically a rehash of the budget One Touch T'Pop announced back at CES, packing a 3.5-inch HVGA TN display, a 1GHz processor, 256MB RAM, 512MB storage and a 3.2-megapixel camera. There are also the usual bunch of radios: WiFi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS, FM radio and UMTS 900/2100 and 850/1900/2100 (up to 7.2Mbps for download and 5.76Mbps for upload). Underneath the removable 1,400mAh battery you'll find a microSD slot that'll take anything up to 32GB (a 2GB card is included), as well as a slot for an old-school Mini-SIM card.

We got the chance to play with the Fire earlier today and while the glossy plastic body -- in either orange or pink -- felt solid enough, the performance wasn't quite there yet: the touch and software response were significantly sluggish, as you'll see in our hands-on video after the break. On the brighter side of things, the surprisingly large loudspeaker on the back produced some punchy bass, but don't expect too much from its audio quality. Alcatel has a few more months to grease up the phone before its June launch across Latin America and Europe, so we'll be able to give it a proper score then. Press release after the break.

Gallery: Alcatel One Touch Fire hands-on