New ZTE Open to be sold on Ebay UK...

TelevisionUserTelevisionUser Posts: 41,405
Forum Member
...as part of a new sales and marketing strategy that cuts out middlemen:

Chinese infrastructure kit and device maker ZTE has announced that it will sell its Firefox OS smartphone, unlocked, direct to eBay UK and eBay US users for just £59.99 ($79.99 through the US site).
http://www.telecoms.com/170372/zte-to-sell-firefox-device-through-ebay/

Here are the specs:

The specification for the ZTE Open includes a 3.5 inch HVGA TFT touchscreen, 256MB of RAM, 512MB of on board memory and comes with a 4GB micro SD card. It also has a 3.2 megapixel camera and supports email, calendar, FM Radio and of course has the Firefox web browser built in. Social networking is not overlooked with social integration with Facebook and Twitter and location-based services like Nokia HERE maps. Of course, you get Firefox Web browser and Firefox Marketplace.
http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/August2013/zte-open-to-sell-on-ebay-uk.html

Whilst it is relatively basic, it's also pretty cheap for an unlocked phone and I guess it'll probably do well in terms of Ebay sales.

Comments

  • jabbamk1jabbamk1 Posts: 8,942
    Forum Member
    Maybe ZTE are looking to pull a fast one and sell the phones on ebay and then claim on the insurance? :D

    But yeh, looks good.
  • TelevisionUserTelevisionUser Posts: 41,405
    Forum Member
    jabbamk1 wrote: »
    Maybe ZTE are looking to pull a fast one and sell the phones on ebay and then claim on the insurance? :D

    But yeh, looks good.

    Given the low price unlocked and the inbuilt social networking facilities, it seems like they're aiming at a teenage/young adult market and such young people will have been brought up on the internet/Google/Ebay, etc. so this move seems logical.
  • iangradiangrad Posts: 813
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    Could be because its non android -- no retailer will take it into stock for fear of returns from people who bought it in error ?
  • noise747noise747 Posts: 30,695
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    Sounds a good idea to be honest and if it was produced by a different company and I have not spent out on a Nexus I would be tempted.

    A true open source phone, I would like a true Linux one to be honest, but it looks like the Ubuntu one is not going to happen at the moment.
  • alanwarwicalanwarwic Posts: 28,396
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    I looked the other day and they were selling 1 per day at about $160 for the high bid.

    They will have sold 365 of them in 12 months time.
    :eek:
  • Esot-ericEsot-eric Posts: 1,293
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    They're going for so much because they're being auctioned at the moment. Once things are properly released they'll probably switch to "Buy it now" at £59.99.

    Might pick one up to keep around as a backup phone, but the Firefox OS folks really need to work on CardDAV support. The reason i switched from a dumb phone to Android all those years ago was to easily manage contacts/calendar on desktop clients which would seamlessly sync with Google, and then to my phone (and visa-versa).

    Practically everybody supports CardDAV these days, but Firefox OS doesn't and the only way to sync contacts is through Facebook. It's strange really since Firefox OS does support CalDAV for calendar syncing and CardDAV and CalDAV are both based on WebDAV so it shouldn't be difficult to implement.
  • Esot-ericEsot-eric Posts: 1,293
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    It's now available at the £59.99 price point (including shipping).
  • Esot-ericEsot-eric Posts: 1,293
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    All sold out now.

    I ordered one yesterday just to see what Firefox OS is like on cheap hardware, and to keep as a backup phone. It's shipped and should be here tomorrow.
  • alanwarwicalanwarwic Posts: 28,396
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    The upcoming premium version is available for pre-order.

    http://shop.geeksphone.com/en/phones/8-peak.html
    I wonder how the word 'geek' translates in Spanish.
  • alan1302alan1302 Posts: 6,336
    Forum Member
    alanwarwic wrote: »
    The upcoming premium version is available for pre-order.

    http://shop.geeksphone.com/en/phones/8-peak.html
    I wonder how the word 'geek' translates in Spanish.

    friki = geek
  • slick1twoslick1two Posts: 2,877
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    alanwarwic wrote: »
    The upcoming premium version is available for pre-order.

    http://shop.geeksphone.com/en/phones/8-peak.html
    I wonder how the word 'geek' translates in Spanish.

    Pretty good spec for the price.
  • Esot-ericEsot-eric Posts: 1,293
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    My ZTE Open came today.

    Not had a whole lot of time to play with it but initial impressions are that Firefox OS is pretty decent, even on this low-end hardware.

    I can confirm that the only way to import contacts is either from the SIM or from Facebook. No CardDAV or any other online contact import/syncing. Maybe it will import from a vcard file but i haven't tried it yet.

    Firefox OS seems pretty complete, although basic, and the performance of the Open seems closer to the G300 than the ZTE Blade.

    So far i'm pretty impressed with it and for anyone that wants to just make calls, send texts, and browse the web it could be a decent choice of basic smart phone.

    No manufacturer crapware or modified UI, it's the pure Firefox OS (much of which you can see in the Firefox OS simulator), so i'll be interested to see how often updates are available for it.

    The only real downsides i see are the lack of a front camera for WebRTC chats (but that's not unexpected on such a cheap device), and the lack of AMR-WB/HD Voice (there's really not any excuse for even the lowest-end device shipping without it these days. Unfortunately most Android devices also lack this feature). There are a few other niggles but those are software-based so will hopefully be sorted out by future updates.

    I really like Firefox OS, so hope it does well in its target markets.
Sign In or Register to comment.