Jimmie Geddes email: j.geddes@mobilenapps.com
Mozilla has just officially unveiled its first Firefox OS developer preview smartphone, a sign that it is getting serious about bringing its Firefox OS to the smartphone world to go up against rivals like Google, Apple, Microsoft, and RIM.
The Developer Preview Phone going by the name Keon will be sold sometime in February and will allow developers to put the new OS through its paces, work on creating apps, and getting the word out that Mozilla's Firefox OS is a viable, alternative platform to Android, iOS, Windows Phone 8, and BlackBerry 10.
Don't get too excited about the specs of this developer preview phone, though. The smartphone will feature a 3.5-inch HVGA touchscreen, 1GHz Snapdragon S1 CPU, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of microSD expandable storage, WiFi, 3G and 2G radios, 3-megapixel camera, and a 1580mAh battery.
The Mozilla Firefox OS developer preview phone will ship unlocked. Mozilla announced that it will release OTA updates to the smartphone so developers will always have the most current build running on the device.
There is another Mozilla Developer Preview Phone that wasn't officially announced today. It is called the "Peak" and it has got higher-end specs. The device will feature a 4.3-inch qHD screen, a 1.2 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 CPU, 8-megapixel rear camera with flash, a 2-megapixel front camera, and an 1,800mAh battery.
The devices are similar in size but it's hard to tell from the pictures. The Keon is colored in the familiar Firefox orange color, while the Peak sports a white case.
2013 is shaping up to be a nice year of getting some radically new smartphone operating systems as well and device. The more the merrier!
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