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Ask HN: Best Firefox phone to get?

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Re: Ask HN: Best Firefox phone to get?

#41

Post by arnoooooo »

glogla wrote: post #40
soapdog wrote: post #7

Don't go with ZTE Open, its the worst phone. Best advise wait for the new models that are being released this year. If you don't want to wait you can get the following models: * Geeksphone Revolution - the most powerful phone but its running on a x86 architecture and the port is done by Geeksphone, even though they released three new updates already there are still bugs. * Alcatel One Touch Fire - great phone and is…

I read somewhere that Flame is supposed to be 170 EUR. Is that true? Because if so, that's not a good thing. That's the same price as Motorola Moto G (which has 720p IPS display and quadcore) for phone with 800x400 display (probably TN) dualcore. Other specs seem to be pretty similar, but still, it makes Flame pretty expensive. I know this is because of the economies of scale, but it still makes FxOS look bad. ZTE Op…

From the link : retailing at US$170, global shipping included

Re: Ask HN: Best Firefox phone to get?

#43

Post by soapdog »

blazespin wrote: post #13
soapdog wrote: post #7

Don't go with ZTE Open, its the worst phone. Best advise wait for the new models that are being released this year. If you don't want to wait you can get the following models: * Geeksphone Revolution - the most powerful phone but its running on a x86 architecture and the port is done by Geeksphone, even though they released three new updates already there are still bugs. * Alcatel One Touch Fire - great phone and is…

If you are a Mozilla rep, you probably want to delete this post or at least remove your overtly critical language. Hardware manufactures invest a lot of resources trying to build for your platform. They are your customer. Insulting them is not good business..

Lets agree to disagree. The hardware manufacturers are our partners and so are the carriers but if it ever comes to a time where we can't be honest and speak our opinions than we're no longer Mozilla.

The OP asked for opinions on phones. I have all of them so I thought I was on a specially good position to give mine.

And from where we stand, business is keeping the internet free and open made by users and for users where everyone can be a creator and not only a consumer. This type of business begins when we're able in engage in healthy conversations such as this one. ;-)

Re: Ask HN: Best Firefox phone to get?

#44

Post by soapdog »

blazespin wrote: post #31
blazespin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a Mozilla rep, you probably want to delete this post or at least remove your overtly critical language. Hardware manufactures invest a lot of resources trying to build for your platform. They are your customer. Insulting them is not good business..

Lol, down voted. Weak, HN, very very weak. This guy could lose his position over that post and I was just trying to help him (maybe it's just a volunteer thing, though). If he was at our company, he would have been fired in a heartbeat. Publicly insulting partners like that? Yikes..

I am very thankful not to be in a company where employees don't have a voice.

I am not a Mozilla employee, I am a Mozilla rep. Its a volunteer position. Mozilla is this strange thing where 800 employees and 100.000 volunteers (reps or not) work togheter for the benefit of you. We're only able to work for the betterment of the internet if we're able to voice our concerns, opinions and judgement.

As for insulting partners, I've insulted no one. I think the partners are wonderful trailblazers but I wish the phones were open. All retail phones ship with Firefox OS 1.1 and they could all be running 1.2 or 1.3 by now if the partners did an OTA or if the phones were unlocked. Knowing this and talking about this is honesty, a very valuable thing for partnerships.

Re: Ask HN: Best Firefox phone to get?

#45

Post by soapdog »

chimeracoder wrote: post #3

I have the ZTE phone to play around with - I got it this past fall just for kicks. It's a great phone for the price, but that's also a very low price point. FirefoxOS is 'ready' for prime time use if and only if you have relatively low requirements of your phone. It can do most basic tasks by virtue of the fact that it uses mobile websites as if they were native apps, but the experience is not yet comparable to Andro…

Just some clarification. Firefox OS doesn't use just mobile websites. It uses web technologies to build apps. You can have mobile websites as apps but you can also have plain packaged apps that live in your phone. Mobile websites that use appcache will work offline and be indistinguishable from a normal app after they cache the content. Packaged apps are just apps that are stored on the phone just like on other platforms.

People need to be aware that Firefox OS is targeted at emerging markets where most people are still using feature phones. In these scenarios, the cheapest Android phones are still expensive to a large chunk of the population. Our Firefox OS phones are built to be a first smartphone for people that are migrating from feature phones. Democratization of internet access is one of our main objectives with Firefox OS. Bringing the next billion people online.

The idea is not to poach users from iOS and high end Android devices but to offer an affordable entry level smartphone that the common people can buy which has a good quality and performance.

And yes, there are a lot of features that still need to be implemented but then again we're building it all in the open and all the source code is on github http://github.com/mozilla-b2g/

If you count the smartphone platforms with devices available to purchase right now, we're the only one that is developed in the open where anyone can contribute and see everything.

There are still many steps to go but think for a bit in what type of world you want five years from now.

A place where walled gardens are king, where platforms are all proprietary or with closed development and where you need to ask permission before publishing an app.

Or a place where we still have the freedom of the web where anyone can publish anything. Where web based apps work with different vendors platforms (as in Hacker News will open in Firefox, Chrome, Safari all the same. The WebAPIs are being standarized and are open for all vendors to implement).

So, as I said, I agree with you that we still need to implement a lot of features but with the points made above you may be able to agree that we have a place and time now to offering a great product to our markets.

Re: Ask HN: Best Firefox phone to get?

#46

Post by soapdog »

gcb0 wrote: post #32

Most people here are giving suggestions without owning any Firefox phone. I actually bought one when i was in Mexico. I tried to see them but even finding one to buy is difficult. See in mx and most other countries without heavy regulation, telefonica from Spain owns the market. And usually they have a shell company as competitor to avoid a mother bell like monopoly. In Mexico the shell company is movistar, the one t…

Hey, there are LOTS of new features from 1.1 to 1.4. Heck there are new APIs available, advancements to all the rendering stuff...

I am a mobile app developer. I have all platforms in here and I use Firefox OS as my daily driver. I get angry sometimes and things do not work as expected or when I see a bug but dogfooding is a great way to recognize points where you need to improve and then work on it.

I haven't seen a FXOS phone crashing all the time. They can be perceived as slow if you're used to high end devices but their performance still great when compared to entry level device.

Also Movistar is not a shell company. Its present in many countries in South America. Telefonica owns many telcos such as Movistar and VIVO.

I have some Alcatel phones in here, most of them running 1.1 and one running a nightly build of 1.3. They are working as expected and they used to cost USD 75 here for a while at the same time the cheapest Android was USD 150.

But as I said above, there are still features needed and believe me 1.3 is much better than 1.1 regarding performance. I hope with the new devices and new OS we can make a better impression on you. As for 1.1 on that device, lots of people migrated from their feature phones and are pretty happy with the purchase.

Re: Ask HN: Best Firefox phone to get?

#47

Post by soapdog »

Thiz wrote: post #25

Guys, guys, one question… Can I build apps for FirefoxOS without owning a phone? I mean just html/js/css using an editor and testing it on an emulator. That's the way I do android apps and I don't have a phone. Can I? Can I? I believe Firefox OS and html based apps are the future. I want to start building it now.

Yes you can. I've wrote a free book giving you all the path, you can pick it up at:

https://leanpub.com/quickguidefirefoxosdevelopment

You basically need a recent version of the Firefox browser and the Firefox OS Simulator add-on. The rest is having a nice editor and doing your web stuff.

Re: Ask HN: Best Firefox phone to get?

#48

Post by gcb0 »

soapdog wrote: post #46
gcb0 wrote: post #32

Most people here are giving suggestions without owning any Firefox phone. I actually bought one when i was in Mexico. I tried to see them but even finding one to buy is difficult. See in mx and most other countries without heavy regulation, telefonica from Spain owns the market. And usually they have a shell company as competitor to avoid a mother bell like monopoly. In Mexico the shell company is movistar, the one t…

Hey, there are LOTS of new features from 1.1 to 1.4. Heck there are new APIs available, advancements to all the rendering stuff... I am a mobile app developer. I have all platforms in here and I use Firefox OS as my daily driver. I get angry sometimes and things do not work as expected or when I see a bug but dogfooding is a great way to recognize points where you need to improve and then work on it. I haven't seen a…

yes, the rendering stuff is nice. i agree wholeheartedly... i'm using 1.4 on that phone since i got it, btw.

but for daily use, there is absolutely nothing new that deserves mention.

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