The first developer phones running the mobile Firefox OS went on sale this morning from startup Geeksphone in Madrid, but it didn’t last long. They were quickly snapped up and listed as “sold out” before the shop went offline for maintenance. The two handsets, known as Keon and Peak,went for $119 and $194 unlocked respectively. That’s practically nothing for a smartphone, but the specs show why.
The cheaper of the two, the Keon, has both a 3G and EDGE connection, 1Ghz Snapdragon processor, 3.5″ screen, 3 megapixel camera, 4 GB of storage, and 512 MB of RAM. Sounds about right for $119. The Peak bests its little sibling slightly with a 1.2Ghz dual core processor, larger 4.3″ screen, a better 8 megapixel rear camera, and a 2 megapixel front-facing one as well.
What’s important to remember though, is that these aren’t meant to be consumer models. Firefox OS is still in its developer preview stage, so these phones are meant to be used by developers to test their products on an actual Firefox OS handset. We haven’t seen much in the way of hardware for the new OS, but it’s probably not going to be looking to compete with the very high end of the phone market, and could instead try to make a name for itself in the middle tier.
Demand for the phones, even as developer previews, could indicate that Firefox OS stands a very real chance of edging out some marketshare in a world dominated at the moment by Android and iOS. A $119 unlocked smartphone is pretty tempting, even if the hardware is a little lackluster. Geeksphone hopes to have more phones in stock by the end of the week.
(Geeksphone via TechCrunch, images via Geeksphone)
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