8 things you must know before buying Intex or Spice Firefox smartphones

With the launch of two low cost Firefox smartphones- Intex Cloud FX and Spice Fire One Mi-FX 1 in India, smartphone buyers have got a lot queries. From a layman perspective, here’s what you get and what you don’t get in these two Firefox smartphones. Also, to clear the doubts of confused masses, Firefox has nothing to do with Android. Both are completely different operating systems.

The Intex Cloud FX and Spice Fire One Mi-FX 1 are 2G enabled smartphones and doesn’t support 3G. On the connectivity front, both the devices features WiFi, Bluetooth and USB tethering. Also, both the handsets are very basic in nature with the only mission to connect users to the Internet and social networking platforms. So, multimedia experience with both the handsets are pretty basic.

Here’s what you need to know:

1) You don’t need an email ID to operate Firefox OS. In Android, you need to have a Gmail account to access most features of the operating system along with Google Play. In Firefox, users are not required to enter an email ID to access the operating system. This makes sense given the fact that Firefox wants to connect the masses to Internet without any form of barrier.

2) Using Firefox smartphones are relatively easy when compared to Android. First time smartphone users will not encounter much difficulties in operating the OS. The call, messaging, contacts and Firefox browser icons are always present in plain sight and the experience is more like using the home screen of Android and you just have to swipe left or right to access apps.

On the home screen, there’s a bar showing “I’m thinking of…” through which users are directed to Google search. Accessing Internet on the Firefox OS is very simple and user-friendly.

3) Firefox OS supports all major social networking apps like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Quora, Pinterest.

4) Very low internal memory. You will need a microSD card to start your multimedia experience with the device. So, if you don’t have one, add the price of a microSD card to the cost. Both handsets support up to 4 GB of external memory.

5) WhatsApp is not available directly. Yes, you got that right. The official WhatsApp instant messaging application is currently not there in Firefox Marketplace . “Users can connect to WhatsApp via third party app called ConnectA2,” said James Ho, senior director, Firefox Mobile Devices Group.

We tried to connect to WhatsApp on the Intex Cloud FX smartphone using the ConnectA2 third party app and we failed. ConnectA2 asked for nick name, country and mobile number to register. Then it asked to enter a six-digit code which the app sent via SMS. The SMS never arrived! We also tried the voice call feature to get the code but failed again.

The ConnectA2 app should have worked but we have no clue as to why it failed us on the Intex Cloud FX.

6) Popular games and apps missing. There’s no Angry Birds or Temple Run or Candy Crush or other other popular games. However, you can play Flappy Birds. The Firefox Marketplace is in a pretty nascent stage but soon you can expect more apps on the platform as apps can be easily ported.

7) Consumes less mobile data. Firefox OS uses web compression techniques which reduces mobile data consumption. Also, as both the devices are 2G only, the data consumption is low when compared to 3G enabled smartphone. So, users can expect 1 GB of data to last the entire month with average usage.

8) More battery life. You can expect both the Firefox handsets to have a greater battery life when compared to other low cost Android handsets.

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Firefox smartphone now in India: Spice Fire One budget device priced at Rs 2,299

Firefox OS in its earliest avatar (Image: AP)

Mozilla’s Firefox OS as a smartphone operating system has had a negligible impact on the market, but all that could change very soon as the first Firefox smartphone has been announced for India. The Spice Fire One has predictable low-end specifications and a greatly attractive price tag.

At Mobile World Congress, Mozilla unveiled plans to expand to additional markets in Latin America and eastern Europe, and also announced a blueprint for any phone maker to make $25 Firefox OS smartphones, which it has now delivered on seemingly with the Spice Fire One,priced at Rs 2,299 

Many vendors are touting their low-cost Android devices as built for the first-time smartphone buyer. But we think that Android, iOS, BB 10 and Windows Phone are so far advanced for most first-time buyers that they don’t even know how to tap the full capability of the OS. Firefox is meant for just this crowd, making it easier to get apps and simple to use for non-practiced users. Firefox OS is built specifically for low-powered phones, and is optimised to run on hardware as low as a single-core processor, which is what Spice’s Fire One sports.

The phone is expected gives users the basic experience, without the performance overhead. It’s meant to decentralise the app publishing process of the leading operating systems, by giving developers full freedom to publish Web apps. The idea behind Firefox OS is it’s a Web-first platform, and not apps-first. It uses the full suite of Web standards such as HTML 5, WebRTC or RTSP for live video streaming, to bring apps and or to convert web pages into apps. In fact, if you use an Android phone, you can check out how this works as the firefox browser app lets you install apps from the Marketplace, like you would a regular Android app.

There’s a handy advantage with this system. Unlike on iOS or Android, where you may have to download apps, with Firefox OS, you have instant access to all apps, since they are basically modified versions of the website or webpage. Firefox says its search-and-launch mechanism will at least partially rid the problem of searching for and installing apps, which is part of the learning curve on any smartphone. This also means that developers don’t have to be bound by app-store rules that most OSes have. A developer could publish any app for Firefox OS on the Firefox Marketplace, just as easily as they would make a webpage.

Mozilla says its currently making big changes to the OS, which will come to handsets over this year. Among the changes is one for the way users access recently used apps or the notification centre. In a bid to set itself apart from the likes of Android, Firefox is working on a cross-platform sync service with Firefox Accounts, which was introduced with the radical Australis makeover. With Firefox Accounts, Mozilla can better integrate services including Firefox Marketplace, Firefox Sync, backup, storage, or even a service to help locate, message or wipe a phone if it were lost or stolen, according to the company. It would ensure your open tabs are synced across the phone and your PC.

The latest version of the OS, v 1.3, addresses some concerns such as POP3 email support, and NFC connectivity for interfacing and triggers. Firefox has also made improvements to the camera app, with support for continuous autofocus provided the hardware is present for such a feature. It’s surely adding a lot of things that are considered crucial in modern day smartphones, but in its own way.

Of course, the big questions are always about what one can do with the phone, the apps, games and utilities available. Here’s where Firefox OS could come undone. Sure, the Marketplace boasts popular apps such as Line, Twitter, Facebook and even Candy Crush, but it’s still a very underwhelming collection. WhatsApp, for example, would be the first app most smartphone newbies look for, but it’s not yet available on Firefox. That could of course change as more devices and vendors come into the picture. But the hard fact is that Firefox OS is still quite nascent and that’s its biggest drawback. Firefox is hoping it can impress first-time smartphone users with how much can be done in so little, which is something Android has yet to convince anyone about, save for a few exceptions.

Android is clearly dominating the budget segment, and such a monopoly is never a good thing for consumers. Choice is great, and Mozilla and Spice are making options available. Make no mistake, Spice is fully invested in Android; the company's website does not yet have a page for the new Firefox OS phone, so it’s clearly just the first step to gauging reaction. And at Rs 2,299 for the Fire One, it’s making thing s way easy for the undecided buyer.

Firefox OS phones might not be so revolutionary that they will change the Indian smartphone market or to dethrone Android; no one thinks Firefox OS is mature enough to do that. But Firefox has the right idea of targetting first-time smartphone buyers, and now we can wait for more manufacturers to follow Spice’s lead, if the first Firefox OS phone is a hit.

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