Considering a Firefox OS Smartphone? 5 Things You Should Know Before Buying

By Prarthito

| Updated: Saturday, September 6, 2014, 10:15 [IST]

While the mobile ecosystem is filled with a host of handsets from a number of manufacturers, the two most dominant mobile OSs that remain to be most sought after are Android and iOS. However, the Firefox OS becomes the newest one to join the mix.

The Firefox OS has already made an official entry into the native handset market with the launch of two low cost Firefox smartphones- Intex Cloud FX and Spice Fire One Mi-FX 1. But with the availability of the handsets, there have been several queries made regarding the features and capabilities of the OS.

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Considering a Firefox OS Smartphone? 5 Things You Should Know

And that's only normal with the OS just arriving at a time when the likes of Android, iOS and Windows Phone are ruling the charts. Although the overall specifications of the handsets aren't that, well, eye-catching, users still have queries about the new OS in particular.

Hence we take a look at the few things you ought to keep in mind if you are indeed considering to invest on one of the handsets running the OS.

It's Not As Hard As They Told You
If you are a regular Android user, getting used to the new Firefox OS shouldn't be a massive issue. All the operable icons that you would need to get started -- contacts, call, messaging -- are present on the home screen. Apart from that it offers more or less the similar kind of exprience as you would find on a regular Android handset. Also, accessing the web is quite easy.

No WhatsApp (For the Time Being)
Here's some major bad news. The official WhatsApp instant messaging application is currently unavailable in the Firefox martketplace. However, users could connect to WhatsApp via a third party app called ConnectA2, according to James Ho, senior director, Firefox Mobile Devices Group. But then again, we have heard how even the third party app doesn't help in this regard.

Love for Mobile Data
Leaving out the WhatsApp issue aside for the time being, it's actually welcoming to know that the Firefox OS will show a lot of love for your mobile data pack. And this is possible since Firefox OS uses certain web compression techniques, in turn reducing mobile data consumption. And moreover, none of the devices support 3G. So handling 2G shouldn't be that big a deal.

Space Crunch!
This one is as sad as it gets. Apparently, you will need to buy an external microSD card to fire up any multimedia experience that you might want on the handset. There's support for 4GB of memory externally, but will that suffice?

Finally... Some Support
Sure WhatsApp isn't available, but you still get to access all your preferred social networking apps on the new OS like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Quora, Pinterest. Happy now? You should be.