Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Best Firefox phone to get?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 48 posts

Re: Ask HN: Best Firefox phone to get?

#11

Post by WhiteDawn »

ehPReth wrote: post #4
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…

Have you upgraded it past the initial build? If so, how far have you gotten?

I personally have been able to get it all the way up to 1.4 on my ZTE Open. It's a mess to do, you need to build the OS from source then splice it into the boot file provided by ZTE and edit some init scripts. It runs perfectly fine after that but I can't comment on stability since I only use it for app testing

Re: Ask HN: Best Firefox phone to get?

#12

Post by ndesaulniers »

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…

ZTE Open is not bad with newer versions. 1.0 is certainly rough, but it gets better with each new release.

Re: Ask HN: Best Firefox phone to get?

#13

Post by blazespin »

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..

Re: Ask HN: Best Firefox phone to get?

#14

Post by bwanab »

ZTE Open.

The good: cheap, it tethers very nicely. The bad: almost everything else.

I gave my android phone to my son when I decided to try FFOS as my only phone on the ZTE open. The hardware isn't good enough and it often lags. I can live with it since I almost always have my tablet which is wifi only.

My biggest concern is that Mozilla hasn't done a good job of providing an update path. I can live without OTA updates, but I'm not going to spend the time hunting in random websites for builds that have vague instructions to update my phone.

Re: Ask HN: Best Firefox phone to get?

#15

Post by 4ad »

ndesaulniers wrote: post #12
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…

ZTE Open is not bad with newer versions. 1.0 is certainly rough, but it gets better with each new release.

And how do you get these new versions? ZTE won't release them, at least here. Root my phone and compile from source? Thanks, I'll pass.

Re: Ask HN: Best Firefox phone to get?

#16

Post by 4ad »

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..

His post is one of the most useful post I have read on HN for months.

I don't have the slightest sympathy for the manufacturers who face difficulties when building phones. I do have sympathy for people who buy crap hardware (because that's all that exists) and suffer because of it. And I am especially annoyed when I buy crap hardware because all the reviews were fake, like you suggest them to be.

Re: Ask HN: Best Firefox phone to get?

#17

Post by ndesaulniers »

4ad wrote: post #15
ndesaulniers wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ZTE Open is not bad with newer versions. 1.0 is certainly rough, but it gets better with each new release.

And how do you get these new versions? ZTE won't release them, at least here. Root my phone and compile from source? Thanks, I'll pass.

I agree that having to root the phone, and manufacturers making their builds public is an issue. Mozilla can't quite control this, as they can't legally redistribute proprietary and closed source binary blobs that are the hardware drivers. But I've brought it up numerous times to the legal dept that the requirements for both should be part of the branding requirements.

Rooting is a PITA, granted, but you shouldn't be afraid of compiling from source, ever, especially if you're reading "hacker" news.

Re: Ask HN: Best Firefox phone to get?

#18

Post by bastawhiz »

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 would advise against the Geeksphones unless you're looking to use them as purely test devices. They were intended as developer phones, not for consumers. They also have some really frustrating issues:

* Both devices still run (AFAIK) FXOS 1.1, which is really very out-of-date. You can flash them with updated versions from Mozilla, but you have to do it yourself. OTA updates will probably not happen. New devices still ship with old versions of FXOS.

* The Peak has a very large screen, which was not something that was fully supported when it first shipped. Some of this has been sorted out after updates, but I occasionally still see people frustrated by poorly scaled interfaces.

* The Peak suffers from a bulging battery issue. The manufacturer has assured everyone that the issue is within tolerances, but it made me uneasy. The battery bulges enough that the back cover of the phone does not sit properly.

* Both devices suffer from charging issues. If you completely drain the batteries, it becomes nearly impossible to charge them. As soon as you plug the device in, it tries to boot, which saps whatever charge it just received. The device shuts itself off, then tries to boot again as soon as it has the tiniest amount of charge. If this happens, your device is basically useless.

Re: Ask HN: Best Firefox phone to get?

#19

Post by ndesaulniers »

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..

Hardware vendors also write some of the worst firmware, and since next to none of them publish their source code, it can't be fixed by the community. Most people I talk to suspect systemic IP infringement at the hardware/software interface, which would be a good reason for source code obfuscation.

Re: Ask HN: Best Firefox phone to get?

#20

Post by ndesaulniers »

bastawhiz wrote: post #18
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 would advise against the Geeksphones unless you're looking to use them as purely test devices. They were intended as developer phones, not for consumers. They also have some really frustrating issues: * Both devices still run (AFAIK) FXOS 1.1, which is really very out-of-date. You can flash them with updated versions from Mozilla, but you have to do it yourself. OTA updates will probably not happen. New devices sti…

Hey Basta! I somewhat disagree.

* Maybe out of the box, but geeksphone does make really nice install scripts and has available every version of FxOS available on their site. [0] Maybe directions about turning on remote debugging first on the device would help, but I'd say they've made it pretty easy. A README would be nice, but they even ship OS specific builds of adb and fastboot in the zips.

* Launching the first 3 devices with the screen resolution of 320x480 and not supporting others in the simulator certainly contribute authors to only testing on one resolution. I myself was guilty with the calculator. But I'm not sure that this is a reason not to get the phone. Maybe you're referring to bugs in some CSS calculations? Do you have any bug numbers off the top of your head?

* Yes, I raised an emergency warning when I saw this, but Geeksphone themselves said that was a safety precaution and was expected. It was due to the battery over heating. I only saw this occur on a peak that we were stress testing WebRTC builds on.

* No. It will do stupid reboot cycles when the battery is basically empty like you said, but that doesn't make the device useless. Letting it sit and charge does the trick.

Hope all is well, buddy.

[0] http://downloads.geeksphone.com/

Post reply on HN