Spice, one of the popular Indian brand for feature phones and entry level smartphones, has taken one more initiative to bring Firefox OS on its economically priced mobile phones. Spice is the first company in Asia to launch Spice Fire One Mi – FX1 smartphone, which runs on Firefox OS developed by Mozilla. Mozilla is known for its very popular web browser and this advantage is being taken forward in the economically priced smartphones especially in developing countries where all the prospective users can’t afford the expensive smartphones running on other platforms. Besides Spice, the other Indian company to come out with Firefox OS smartphone is Intex.
Spice has an advantage that they are the biggest makers of feature phones and those users who intend to migarte to smartphone world with limited budget and who are not tech savy enough to experiment with various applications provided by Android,Windows etc. world and are interested to use basic social networking sites and limted apps for games, music etc., then this platform of Firefox would be ideal for them to start with.
Spice Fire One Mi – FX1 is targetted for the first time users who wish to experience the smartphone world and this device provides ample space for dabbling with social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, etch and also start playing games, watching videos and music streaming.
I had the opportunity to play with this smartphone and used it from the point of view of first time users, who are not aware of nitty gritties of applications and want a very simple device to fulfill their basic needs and Spice Fire One Mi – FX1 will not disappoint the users on this score.
Display and build quality
It has a 3.5-inch HVGA screen(320 x 480 pixels), which will be ideal for browsing, exploring networking sites, playing games and watching videos. Although, I experienced some lag while browsing some websites but probably being user of high-end smartphone, I was expecting a lot from this device which is priced fraction of the cost compared to my device and hence I think this is not a negative point. But still, I feel that the manufacturer should pay a little bit more attention to make the display more user friendly and powerful. The build quality of this smartphone is sturdy and even with rough handling, it is not going to have scratches on it easily.
Firefox OS
This OS provides basic applications, which are sufficient for the beginners. When you open the marketplace on your display screen of the device, it shows four icons : Home, Games, Tools and Lifestyle and by clicking on these, you are shown the respective apps available for download. The device comes pre-loaded with Facebook, Twitter and Connect A2 (a WhatsApp connect app) for using rightwaway after connecting to Wi-Fi or 2G connection.
Firefox OS is basically web browser based OS and all the apps sits there. This phone has very simple UI with a few homescreens where all the apps are located. You are required to be connected online with 2G connection or Wi-Fi to access the apps on this device. I tried Facebook and few videos from YouTube on this smartphone, and the expeirence from the perspectives of the first time users was good. Sound quality of the music and videos was also good.
Hardware
It is powered by a 1GHz processor paired with128MB RAM, 256MB of internal storage which is extendable to 4GB. This phone has dual-SIM card slots for 2G connections only. For connectivity, it supports GPRS/Edge, Bluetooth, USB and Wi-Fi. It is packed with a 1400 mAh battery.
Camera
This phone has 1.3-megapixel rear camera and 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera. One should not expect high quality images from the rear and front camera, but still forposting on social sites, these are not bad and one can atleast snap the moments even in low resolution.
Overall Performance
To sweeten the offer, Spice is offering free silicon cover for Fire One Mi – FX1 and 1500MB data from Aircel. It has feature of Single Window Search, Adaptive App Search, Hindi, Tamil and Bangla language support.
This is an attempt by Spice to bring budget customers to smartphone world from feature phones. Firefox OS has limited applications and it is early days for both Firefox and Spice to introduce this OS to low-cost smartphone. For the first time users, the experience of Firefox OS will make them aspire for smartphone having bigger and better screen, faster processor and higher RAM and internal storage and of course, better shooting capabilites. Mozilla will definitely bring more apps to its Firefox OS in due course of time, and the manufacturers will also increase the hardware specifications to get space in highly competitive OS platforms. The first time users will not be disappointed with their usuage of Firefox OS on Spice Fire One Mi – FX1, which is priced at Rs. 2,299/-.
I would never recommend Spice phones to anyone considering the kinda service they provide and the quality of the builds.