Firefox Smartphones are finally going to be available for Indian consumers and it is just not one but two Indian companies are coming up with it and as expected both of them are much below $50 price tag.
Low cost Indian smartphone manufacturer Spice mobiles has announced launch of Spice Fire One Mi-FX 1 (not sure why such long name) that is priced at Rs. 2299 and will be exclusively sold on Snapdeal from August 29th. We tried to find a “Coming Soon” or “Pre-Order” page for this on Snapdeal, but we could not find it.
Another low cost mobile manufacturer Intex has also announced launch of Intex Cloud Fx Firefox OS based smartphone at even more attractive pricing at Rs. 1999. Like Spice, Intex phone will also be exclusively sold on Snapdeal.
With these launches, the barrier of entry for smartphones in India has come down to below Rs. 2000 (Below USD30). The cheapest android phone available in India is currently in region of around 2,500!
Let us look at both the phones more closely.
Spice Fire One Mi-FX1
The Spice Fire One Mi-FX1 phone comes with a 3.5-inch HVGA display that is powered by 1GHz processor. Although the processor is not names, we are assuming it is the low cost processor from Spreadtrum communication. Mozilla COO Gong Li had mentioned last month that they were able to keep the price of the Firefox smartphones low due to their low-cost chipset.
The dual-sim phone sports 1.3 megapixel rear camera along with 0.3 megapixel front camera. For connectivity, phone has GPRS, Edge, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. There is no 3G
While the amount of RAM has not been disclosed as yet, we think it should be either 128mb or 256mb. The phone supports 3 Indian languages – Hindi, Tamil and Bangla.
Intex Cloud Fx
Intex Cloud Fx has very similar specs as Spice Fire One – Cloud Fx too has a 3.5-inch HVGA display that is powered by 1GHz processor. It looks like it has a better rear camera at 2.0 megapixel and a VGA front camera. Most of the other features are exactly same as Spice.
But interestingly, Intex has priced it nearly Rs. 300 cheaper, which makes Intex, probably the cheapest smartphone available in India. Additionally, Aircel subscribers can avail 1GB data free per month for 3 months by simply SMSing ‘INTEX’ to 121.
Comparison
Given the price tag both the phones have, low specifications are expected. What needs to be seen is how well the Firefox OS operates with these low specifications. If it operates painfully slow, the low price does not have any meaning.
However, if these phone operate even moderately well with the specifications they have, these should get quite popular with Indian masses.
What do you think?
[…] run on the highly awaited Firefox OS. Just like the masses, we too were very excited about the new Firefox OS. So, to satiate our curiosity and help you make an informed buying decision we bought the phone […]
[…] consumers – Spice Mobiles have announced launch of Fire One Mi-FX1 for 2299 and Intex Mobiles have announced launch of Cloud Fx phone for Rs. […]