If you thought the smart phone OS realm was saturated, we have more news for you – Firefox makes its OS debut with the Keon and Peak models and mobile phone aficionados have one more OS to choose from. Perhaps future phones will be Firefox powered rather than iOS or Android.
Dressed in orange hues, these phones are simplistic and classy on the outside with a completely web based OS powering its operations.
More about Keon and Peak
Keon is the smaller of the two with a 3.5 inch display, while the Peak has a trendy 4.5 inch display with good resolution and a touch screen interface. Keon is not as dynamic as the Peak version since Keon has a Snapdragon version 1 processor with a 1 GHZ frequency while the Peak smart phone has a cool Snapdragon version 4 processor clocking speeds of 1.2 GHz frequencies.
Keon has a battery with life 1560 Ah and a 3MP rear camera with no front portrait camera facility. Peak has an 1800 Ah battery life, an 8MP rear facing camera and a VGA enabled front facing camera for portraits and video calling facilities as well. Both phones have 4 GB internal memory space and a 512 MB RAM, while Peak’s memory can be expandable to 64 GB through external slot devices.
What new does the Firefox OS offer you?
At the onset, Firefox wants to make mobile phones more ‘open’ and accessible with web connectivity. As expected, the Firefox OS would be the primary web interface used for browsing and web surfing and there may be other browsers installed later on. Another wonderful feature in Firefox enabled phones would be the app facilities that would be powered by HTML5 scripts and thus, used on any smart phone irrespective of the OS used. Firefox apps might not have the diversity and ampleness of Android or Apple apps but their ‘any OS compatibility’ makes them a fine choice for you to invest.
Will Firefox have to rely on Telefonica?
No OS can be a success without a robust hardware creating company supporting its designs and innovations. Although Firefox has come out openly stating that more than five large phone carriers (read Sprint, Verizon, etc) have come up in support of the OS and are interested in forming an alliance, there is really only Telefonica that has openly embraced the OS and created two smart phones (one high end, one mid-range) to test waters. It now, depends largely on whether this ‘obscure-brand and emerging-OS’ combo spark a trend in the market.
Telefonica has got a large reach in Latin America and Spain, which are huge markets and possibly the web based applications might lure customers in the US and UK to try Firefox OS. There is a strong rumor circulating the market about the niche of low end smart phones fast disappearing since Nokia parted ways with Symbian and Android has only committed to bigger and better designs. If Firefox can attack and capture the budget smart phone niche to start with, it could expand on the rest of the market as well. Watch this space for more.
Phil Turner wonders about future phones and what even basic phones will include . . .
