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ZTE Open Firefox OS phone is available on eBay

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Re: ZTE Open Firefox OS phone is available on eBay

#41

From Belgium: Unfortunately, access to this particular item has been blocked due to legal restrictions in some countries. We are blocking your viewing in an effort to prevent restricted items from being displayed. Regrettably, in some cases, we may prevent users from accessing items that are not within the scope of said restrictions because of limitations of existing technology. Please accept our apologies for any in…

wow they send to Cyprus. This must be a first!

Re: ZTE Open Firefox OS phone is available on eBay

#42
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For EU: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ZTE-Open-3G-Unlocked-Firefox-OS-Ce...

But it is not at all for all EU countries. I'm in Sweden and it's on the darn "Excludes" list. Very weird.

surprisingly enough they send to my country (Cyprus) which is not even mainland and they don't send to Estonia which is supposed to be one of Europe's start-up centers

Re: ZTE Open Firefox OS phone is available on eBay

#43
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same price as the low end Samsung android phones with comparable specs. If you're willing to roll the dice with no-name phones imported directly from China, you can get an unlocked smartphone for around $50

FFOS will almost certainly be more usable on low-spec than Android... have you tried the category you mentioned? It's horrible .

I currently use Android version of the same ZTE phone. It definitely can't compare to the Galaxy Nexus that I used to have, but it works well enough.

I'm thinking of switching to the Open, but I wonder how hard it would be to get it to work on Straight Talk's network.

Re: ZTE Open Firefox OS phone is available on eBay

#45
post #38

I'm very positive about FFOSes future, but if you're thinking of buying one today, bear in mind that you will be buying into an ecosystem that is under very heavy development. My dev phone is very, very slow. I couldn't use it as my daily driver. But I look forward to the time when I can.

Out of curiosity, are you running the latest FxOS build, etc.? I know Engadget has an article somewhere saying the lagginess improved a bit.

I ordered one in order to replace my feature phone. Although the phone doesn't crash nor would I call the UI feedback on pressing a button "laggy", it certainly isn't fast.

Re: ZTE Open Firefox OS phone is available on eBay

#46
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you're binging your own phone and its 3G limited, your best bets for cheap plans is an ATT PAYG plan [0] and I would forgo the data plan or StraightTalk [1]. If you want data, you can probably get away with ATT's 'basic' phone unlimited data plan (Honestly, I would consider a FfOS a feature phone and not a smartphone) for $35 a month. Or a StraightTalk ~$44 a month unlimited plan that doesn't care about feature…

"(Honestly, I would consider a FfOS a feature phone and not a smartphone.)" You would. I hope to God that AT&T will, too. The whole "you -must- have a data plan if you have a smartphone" is ridiculous. In any case, I don't think they have automatic 'smartphone' detection, and if they do, they probably won't add ZTE Open to their list any time soon. By the way, I didn't know AT&T had a 'basic' phone data plan. Will ha…

They do have automated filtering by IMEI for smartphone / dumbphone -- every handset line has a specific IMEI sequence and they update the filter when new phones are released fir AT&T. Your guess is as good as mine on how up to date those filters are for not-released-on-ATT phones.

Re: ZTE Open Firefox OS phone is available on eBay

#47
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same price as the low end Samsung android phones with comparable specs. If you're willing to roll the dice with no-name phones imported directly from China, you can get an unlocked smartphone for around $50

FFOS will almost certainly be more usable on low-spec than Android... have you tried the category you mentioned? It's horrible .

My first android phone had worse or similar specs, and it worked well enough.

Re: ZTE Open Firefox OS phone is available on eBay

#48
post #38

I'm very positive about FFOSes future, but if you're thinking of buying one today, bear in mind that you will be buying into an ecosystem that is under very heavy development. My dev phone is very, very slow. I couldn't use it as my daily driver. But I look forward to the time when I can.

Out of curiosity, are you running the latest FxOS build, etc.? I know Engadget has an article somewhere saying the lagginess improved a bit. I ordered one in order to replace my feature phone. Although the phone doesn't crash nor would I call the UI feedback on pressing a button "laggy", it certainly isn't fast.

As best I know I am, yes- I see relatively frequent "System Update" notifications and apply them whenever I get them.

Re: ZTE Open Firefox OS phone is available on eBay

#49
post #21
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you're binging your own phone and its 3G limited, your best bets for cheap plans is an ATT PAYG plan [0] and I would forgo the data plan or StraightTalk [1]. If you want data, you can probably get away with ATT's 'basic' phone unlimited data plan (Honestly, I would consider a FfOS a feature phone and not a smartphone) for $35 a month. Or a StraightTalk ~$44 a month unlimited plan that doesn't care about feature…

The Straight Talk plans on AT&T's network have a hidden 100MB/day limit, after which your data gets effectively shut off (you still get miniscule bandwidth, but it's unusable) and their policy for how long you get shut off is completely opaque. Customer "service" switches you to a recording if you ask about it. VERY not recommended. T-mo doesn't have daily limits as far as I know.

I really wouldn't call this a huge dealbreaker, given they're a budget MVNO. Now Tmo on the other hand has off-network roaming limits that are ridiculously small (like 35mb small) for the entire billing period...and given the scope of their network (read: nonexistent outside of big cities) you're pretty much boned if you live outside a big city.

Re: ZTE Open Firefox OS phone is available on eBay

#50
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You couldn't scrolled down a few inches to see: Support US 3G NETWORK 2G NETWORK:GSM 850/900/1800/1900 3G NETWORK:UMTS 850/1900 Which is any GSM carrier and, depending on your area, 3G from ATT and Tmo or just ATT + all the MVNO's, US Cellular and other smaller regionals that lease from ATT

Any timeline for a CDMA phone? ... googling.

I would peg it at "Highly unlikely" since most of the world uses GSM and CDMA carriers are a pain in the ass to support iirc.
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