
Unboxing and setting up the Firefox OS ZTE - Danieru
http://danieru.com/2013/10/22/unboxing-the-firefox-os-zte-open-setup/
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natural219
This article is amazing, the way I interpreted it. Going through each screen,
I kept thinking to myself, "oh boy, here's another FxOS hater who just _doesn
't get it_". Then, at the end, the catharsis:

"To be honest I think the box achieves the goal. I do not expect FxOS to be
complete. I expect it to have room for improvement and to be welcoming of my
contributions. That is what FxOS needs right now, the luxury boxes can come
later."

Amen. Well-written, and I hope you enjoy your new FxOS :)

~~~
wahsd
I just wish Firefox OS would focus on constructing a system that counters all
the other devices that are essentially nothing more than tracking devices for
corporations and governments....to a degree that negates anything that any
other society has had to deal with in the past. You think {pick your favorite
flavor of totalitarianism, authoritarianism, or monarchy} was bad? At least in
the past you had a slight chance to move around anonymously. Today it is
impossible without an organized network of people willing to risk their lives
and livelihood. For all intents and purposes it is impossible to move
anonymously anymore, and even if you want to make the case that it is still
possible....it will not in short order.

~~~
andor
It's pretty hard to get rid of tracking completely:

* You probably want to use a mobile network (like GSM) for phone calls and data. As long as you're booked into the network, the carrier knows (approximately) where you are.

* If you use Wifi, you can be tracked by your MAC address

To just reduce the amount of tracking by companies (not governments) a little
bit, it would help to use distributed services like XMPP instead of Whatsapp
and Facebook. Then you could choose service providers that you trust, or host
your own server, and still have interoperability with other people. Because
businesses like lock-in, this will probably not happen for the majority of
people.

~~~
chimeracoder
> * If you use Wifi, you can be tracked by your MAC address

There is a startup that does exactly this - track MAC addresses of cell phones
in stores, and then resell that data to store owners, so they can track who
comes into their stores: [http://www.getnomi.com/](http://www.getnomi.com/)

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InTheSwiss
I am really tempted to buy one of these but I am currently torn between this
and a cheap android phone. I find myself using the "smart" features on my
phone less and less mainly due to the fact I have been trying to lessen my
addiction to technology and being "always connected". Ideally I would like to
spend around £100. I have also been looking at the Lumia 520 but I am not too
keen on Windows Phone. All I really need it for is a basic browser (I don't do
much browsing on my phone), mp3 player and maps. Everything else I can live
without. Firefox OS does all I need it is just the reviews of the hardware on
the ZTE Open are pretty poor. Suggestions welcome :)

~~~
makmanalp
I'm also between a cheap android and this. Anyone know of any few-year-old
phones that'll run 4.1? $200-250 is around what I'm hoping to pay.

EDIT: Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'm a tad sketched out by the no-name
chinese copies. They look good, but you have to wonder whether they go through
decent QA processes and have to comply with the same safety laws as phones
sold in the US.

~~~
vidarh
The "no-name Chinese copies" are in many cases really good. I have a Star
B92m, which is roughly a Galaxy S III copy. It is slower, and slightly
different port layout (which is annoying, as otherwise it is perfect
dimensions to fit all cases etc.). Apart from that the only problem is that
the GPS antenna is way too short, so if GPS matters to you you pretty much
need to open the phone and mod it. Other than that it's an excellent phone.

The B92m is last years model, and I bought it for about $240 at the time. This
year you can get quad core full hd (1920x1080) phones for the same price.

Basically it is down to reading reviews in advance to ensure the features you
care about works as they should.

Safety is really not a concern when it comes to the phone itself - if you're
worried, throw away the charger and pick up any USB charger you trust more.

Overall keep in mind that most of these "copies" are only copies or imitations
of better known brands on the surface - if you open them up what you tend to
see is boards that are closely following the same reference boards for either
MTK (Taiwanese fab-less manufacturer; one of the worlds largest semiconductor
companies), Rockchip or AllWinner (Cinese mainland) CPUs.

You can pick up devices from dozens of different manufacturers and find boards
that are close to (or totally) identical in most of the ones using the same
SOCs. In the case of AllWinner at least, chances are the devices are designed
by close partners of AllWinner - I'm assuming the same is the case for MTK and
Rockchip.

The upside of this is that it's not like some random little outfit have
actually designed most of the internals of most of these phones - they're
largely well tested designs from well established large engineering companies.
Most of them are also very simple, relying on MTK, AllWinner or Rockchip SOCs
that embed most of the functionality in a single package, so the boards often
just break out ports and have minor supporting circuitry which is presumably a
big reason why they're so popular with this market segment.

~~~
makmanalp
Wow, some of these phones are not just copies but pretty awesome on their own.
Eg:

[http://www.xiaomi.com/en/mi3](http://www.xiaomi.com/en/mi3)

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barwell
I was going to purchase this phone but apparently we have to rely on the
kindness of ZTE if we're to get OS updates, or go through a complicated
process much like it is for Android. This is massively disappointing for a
supposedly 'open' phone and has put me off entirely.

[https://support.mozilla.org/en-
US/questions/967817](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/967817)

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.b2g/q20P...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.b2g/q20PteboREo)

Is is really as bad as it seems?

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stuaxo
I use it as my main phone, it has a little way to go (to be expected).

[EDIT] - it is stonkingly cheap, and is amazing for the price.

~~~
gcb0
in your opinion, how are maps? and text input?

~~~
OWaz
I was using the ZTE for a month as my main phone. I got the T-Mobile $30/month
Walmart plan and kept my iPhone 4 with me. Text input was okay as long as I
pressed the buttons a little slower than what I'm used to on an iPhone 4. I
think spell check was not yet available - or I didn't notice to turn it on so
I had to spell perfectly. The map app would give me incorrect data
(store/restaurant locations for Tucson Arizona) and it became annoying enough
that I just relied on my iPhone for map stuff. In some rare occasions I
couldn't get the phone to dial a number and that required a hard reset.
Sometimes I couldn't get it to answer a call. I would press the button to
answer but the phone wouldn't respond. I don't know if that's the OS problem
or the ZTE not responding correctly to input.

When viewing a missed call I would see the phone number appear first and then
the name of the contact replace the number. As if it takes a fraction of a
second for it to match the number to the name. It did that every time and I
didn't add that many contacts to my phone.

FYI I haven't updated to the most recent Firefox OS release so some of those
issues might have been fixed.

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pekk
More computers aimed solely at content consumers, neutered only to run web
browsers, with their own NIH development environments tied down to specific
languages.

~~~
camus2
> More computers aimed solely at content consumers, neutered only to run web
> browsers, with their own NIH development environments tied down to specific
> languages.

What are you talking about ? Firefox os made a choice i wish them good luck.

If you are talking about phone oses is general Android is hackable,it's not
just aimed at content consumers. As for specific languages you can code in
java ,c/c++,python,... or javascript with android. you are not tied to
anything.

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joshmn
Call me crazy, but I see a lot of inspiration from WebOS in FxOS. As someone
who went back to their Palm Pre 6 times between July of 2009 (when I first got
the device) and August of 2011, I love this.

Now I just wish that Palm and Sprint would have put more into the hardware for
the builds.

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mihok
Does anyone know of distributors for either of the Firefox OS's in Canada,
been googling to no avail.

~~~
dobbsbob
I bought mine off ebay, there is no duty on smartphones just 5% GST

