LG Launches Its Firefox OS Phone Fireweb for $200

SmartAboutThings writes "LG has launched the Fireweb Firefox OS smartphone in a joint event with the Telefonica Vivo carrier. The Fireweb Firefox OS smartphone will be available for around $200 and will join the Alcatel One Touch Fire which Telfonia is launching in Brazil, starting today. Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay are the next countries to get it. The Fireweb smartphone is LG's very first Firefox OS device and it increases the small number of OEMs that have released Firefox OS devices on the market. The smartphone has a 4-inch screen with a 480 x 320 display, a 1GHz Qualcomm processor and 4GB internal storage that can be expanded with the microSD card slot by up to 32GB. It has a 5-megapixel cameras that comes with both autofocusing and an LED flash, which is a first for Firefox OS phones." Hopefully an OEM releases a Firefox OS phone with beefier hardware, but you can't argue with the price.

Comments

Expense for the Hardware

[Luthair]

The hardware is significantly worse than that of the Nexus 4 from a year ago which was available for $299. Personally I'd expect either better components or a significantly better price.

Re:Expense for the Hardware

[Jane Q. Public]

"Personally I'd expect either better components or a significantly better price."

To a large degree, you're paying for both freedom and lack of subsidies.

Android and iOS environments are full of apps that track you and your behaviors behind your back. Despite the lip service Apple and Google give to the practice, both of those OSes were fundamentally designed to allow that. (Otherwise, why isn't there finer-grained control over what information those applications can access? That would be pretty easy to do.)

Firefox OS is different. The company is independent, it is non-profit, it is dedicated to freedom, choice, privacy and security.

$80 of phone and $120 of tax

[tepples]

The CPU is very poor, also, for $200. The same phone for $80 is almost reasonable.

Blame Brazil's prohibitive import duty. It might be $80 of phone and $120 of tax.

Re:old but old

[gmuslera]

NSA free? Or at least, harder to get in unnoticed than in some bundled google/apple app, or even 3rd party, installable apps. Specially, for Brazil.

Re:I can argue about the price

[tbuddy]

$299 you mean.

If you are going to compare prices, do it right

[no_go]

Phones in Brazil are more expensive than in the US.

In Brazil the price for the nexus 4 would be between 300 and 600 USD , according to this:
http://www.tudocelular.com/LG/precos/n2361/LG-Google-Nexus-4.html

According to this http://tecnologia.ig.com.br/2013-10-22/sem-alarde-lg-traz-primeiro-smartphone-com-firefox-os-para-o-brasil-por-r-129.html
The Fireweb phone costs about 205 USD. If acquired via contract , it goes down to 60 USD.

Apples to apples, oranges to oranges, on the right market....

Re:I can argue with the price.

[Stormwatch]

That's Brazil for you: everything electronics is insanely expensive down here. $200 is just slightly above the low-end class of Nokia Asha and Samsung Wave.

Re: old but old

[gmuslera]

The exploit was on the old version of Firefox that had the Tor Bundle. And Firefox OS seem to have a good push for upgrading it.

Open source security advantage in this is not being bug free (nor is closed source one), but that is auditable. Backdoors are harder to slip in and also more visible (so if you sneak one in a system that you use too, it can be used by others against you, something that you as a government don't want)

Re: old but old

[CRCulver]

While the Tor Browser Bundle exploit was old, it is worth assuming that with the NSA's resources, they can find exploits in any new version of Firefox before they are discovered publicly and patched by Mozilla.

Re:I can argue with the price.

[Zaatxe]

Not to mention the US$1850 Playstation 4, of course...