I’m somewhat intrigued by Firefox OS, although I’m far from certain that yet another mobile operating system is actually going to stand a chance. ZTE’s started offering its budget Firefox OS handsets for sale via eBay, and they should work acceptably well in Australia.
The whole point with Firefox OS phones is that they’re absolute budget offerings; the ZTE Open phone in question runs on a 1.0 GHz Cortex-A5 processor with 512MB of storage and 256MB of RAM, a relatively weak 3.15MP rear camera and a 3.5 inch 320×480 pixel display screen. So don’t go crazy bidding thousands for one.
The eBay listing suggests it’s unlocked for “Support US 3G NETWORK”, but notes that it’s a UMTS 850/1900/2100 3G device, which means in 3G terms it should work acceptably well on Telstra and Vodafone’s 3G services, and wherever Optus has any 2100MHz 3G services, although I’ve not been able to absolutely verify that. It’s always feasible that the networks in question might be horribly confused by a Firefox phone trying to access services.
Telstra’s network should at least in theory support Firefox OS phones. I wrote earlier in the year about Telstra being specifically namechecked at this year’s Mobile World Congress when phones were first announced, although it later backed away from actually stating it would offer the phones for sale, noting only that it would be testing devices.
Source: eBay via eBay Electronics Blog