Firefox OS that can be purchased for only 3800 yen How about the comfort of a smartphone?

Wherever you are in the world you can communicate in an instant if you have the Internet, but there are many countries around the world that do not have such infrastructure to access such internet. For emerging countries that can not easily access such Internet, Google is a cheap smartphone that can be purchased at around 10,000 yenAndroid OneAlthough it is starting, it is possible to get at a cheaper $ 35 (about 3800 yen) than thisFirefox OSOn-board smartphone "Cloud FX"Is present. Although it is a cheap smartphone of an unparalleled level, Ars Technica reveals in a thorough review how actually this is a terminal that can be used.

Testing a $ 35 Firefox OS phone-how bad could it be?? | Ars Technica
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/10/testing-a-35-firefox-os-phone-how-bad-could-it-be/

"Cloud FX" is a cheap smartphone made by Intex, a terminal made for emerging countries such as India. The average monthly salary of Indian people is 295 dollars (about 32,000 yen), and if this monthly salary this Android One terminal which is cheap in other developed countries is also hard to get out I understand that. Google seems to be targeting Android One to be "high quality," even smartphones that offer smartphones to countries that have few means to connect to the Internet, 60FpsArs Technica wrote that "It is unclear whether these elements are really needed or not," the specifications for playing the animation of the game, or the latest software can be updated, and "It is unknown whether these elements are really needed" It is.

The following image is a map showing the proportion of Internet users in each country in FY2012. In the US, Canada, Australia, and Europe, the Internet usage rate is 80 to 100%, but in most areas more than half of the citizens can not access the Internet. It is said that there is a reason for the existence of cheap smartphones like Cloud FX in the place where the Internet which has not been fully penetrated like this is delivered to the hands of various people.


◆ Photo review
Regarding the terminal quality of Cloud FX, Ars Technica barely expresses it as "not good". For example, if you look closely well, it seems that everything on the surface plastic material is not consistent color, so that things that can not be done with such an ordinary smartphone have happened unintentionally It seems to be the quality of Cloud FX that can be purchased for 3800 yen.

This is Cloud FX. Although the display is 3.5 inches, considering the display size, the size of the main body is relatively large, and about 40% of the surface area becomes the bezel. In other words, Cloud FX is the world's first frameless design smartphoneAQUOS CRYSTALThat is the opposite terminal.


The surface of the main body is covered with hard plastic instead of glass, and when you look at the display obliquely, you can see that there is a large space between the touch screen and the LCD screen. In the case of high-end smartphones, it seems that this touch screen and the liquid crystal screen are adhered to each other exactly. With the gap being empty, the image quality of Cloud FX originally not good is further deteriorated, And that.


There is a character of "Firefox OS" on the back, and the uneven part of the surface is diamond · pattern cut. Although the volume of the rear speaker is said to enter a rather large category among smart phones, the sound quality is "I understand"level.


2 megapixel camera on the back


Earphone jack and power button on the top


Bottom


On the left side is a volume control button and Micro - USB port for charging.


Paccari back cover. Three card slots are visible, but two on the lower side are for SIM card ......


Next to the word "INTEX" is the microSD card slot.


When Cloud FX (middle) is arranged with iPhone 5s (left) and Nexus 5 (right) like this.


The thinness is 12 mm, even if you see it compared to the latest smartphone it is thickened. However, the weight is 104 g which is very light and compact compared to the smartphone whose size is also latest.


The resolution is 480 × 320 and the pixel density is 165 ppi


Since the liquid crystal used is of the first generation, the viewing angle is very narrow, ninety degrees. It is OK to tilt the screen horizontally, but if you tilt the screen in the vertical direction, the color on the screen will flip like a negative film at around 20 degrees as shown in the image below and it will be hard to see I will. Moreover, because the color on the display changes depending on the angle, it is difficult to distinguish what color actually appears on the screen. Because of these features, there is a terrible thing that if you hold the device sideways, it seems that the color looks different on the left and right of the screen though it should be on the same screen.


Note that Cloud FX has a home button at the bottom of the display, and Cloud FX does not have a physical "back" button on many Firefox OS devices. In response, Ars Technica commented that "Firefox OS applications are not so complicated as to require most back buttons."

◆ Specifications
display:3.5 inch liquid crystal display, resolution 480 × 320, pixel density 165 ppi
OS:Firefox OS 1.3
CPU:Spreadtrum 1 GHz SC6821
RAM:128 MB
GPU:Mali 400
storage:256 MB (the available capacity is 46 MB)
Communication method:GSM 900/1800
External connection:802.11 g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, microSD card (maximum 4 GB)
camera:2 MP
size:Vertical 115.9 mm × width 62 mm × thinness 11.8 mm
weight:104 g
battery:1250 mAh
Others:Dual SIM slot, FM radio
price:$ 35 (about 3800 yen)

Compared to the latest smartphones sold in developed countries such as Japan and the United States, the specification of Cloud FX is poor as "Do you made a typo as well?" In particular, it is surprising that the available storage capacity is 46 MB, and it is a tremendous storage capacity in a certain way considering that iPhone photos are about 2 MB each. Of course, when using the external microSD card is indispensable.

In addition, the communication method "GSM 900/1800" corresponds to the 2nd generation mobile communication system (2G), it is a communication method older than 3G, LTE etc. currently mainstream in Japan, the speed is very high Low speed.

There is no flash, things that are indispensable for the latest smartphone such as in-camera and GPS function are not installed, and there is no battery backup, so information on time and date is reset when the device's battery runs out It is a tremendous point that it will become difficult to input these data from one direction. Please be aware that security certificates will not be issued if the time remains reset, so you will not be able to download applications, receive mail, or access secure web pages. Of course, if you set the time, it will be usable as usual ... ....

Cloud FX specs were released in 2007First iPhoneIt is said that it was almost equivalent to.

◆ Firefox OS
Firefox OS is very similar to Chrome OS, it seems to be like impression that the browser was extended to OS. As all the Firefox OS applications were created using HTML 5 and other open web standard technologies, there is no unique specification etc, so it is a great point from the developer's side. In addition, Cloud FX has Firefox OS 1.3 and it is one of the older version.

Theoretically, multitasking is possible even in Firefox OS, but as you can see from the detailed specifications, the Cloud FX's memory is as very small as 128 MB, so it is almost impossible to use the multitasking function except for some. This "RAM 128 MB" is not a multitasking function that launches applications in the background, and even normal applications can not start up if the capacity is too big. Also, since there is too little memory, for example, when some kind of notification arrives while displaying a web page, if the screen switches, it will be necessary to read the web page again Web surfing seems to be considerable punishment.

When I display Ars Technica in the browser, it looks like this. In the browser, it is also possible to display multiple tabs, there are only two items on the setting screen and it is very simple.


When you open YouTube, Gmail, Outlook etc. in the browser, this way. Although memory is small, it seems that YouTube playback was possible properly. However, Gmail did not recognize that it opened the page with Firefox.


A dedicated applicationFirefox MarketplaceCan install from. It seems that it was impossible to play the superior graphics game with Cloud FX, but other apps work perfectly. All of these applications can be used in Firefox of the PC browser as well, so this is a place for app developers to appreciate. There are two types of applications in the Firefox OS: a local application and a bookmark application, and the local application is an application that can be used even if it is not connected to the net, and the bookmark application simply makes it easy to see the web page according to the device, It is only molded easily.


The calendar application can synchronize with Google Calendar, but it is impossible to edit from the device side.


Clock application exists, but Cloud FX's memory is too small, it is impossible to launch the application in the background. So, whenever you want to use an alarm, you need to keep the clock application open at all times, and it is something that you can not use it very much instead of an alarm clock.


You can sync contacts saved on Google.


The mail application supports POP, IMAP, automatic synchronization. However, since Cloud FX's memory capacity is low, automatic synchronization does not work, so after all you will need to check your mail manually.


In Firefox OS, it is possible to scroll the home screen in the horizontal direction like iOS or Android, swipe the screen upwards to display the notification screen, store multiple applications in a folder at once, That folder display is a screenshot at the left end of the image. The middle screenshot is for launching the radio application, and the screenshot at the far right shows the situation when switching applications.


Since only the music player can start up in the background, it is possible to play music even if other applications are open.


The camera application and the gallery application feel like the following. The pictures of the dogs on the far right are not taken with Cloud FX.


The privacy setting of Firefox OS is very nice, privacy setting is possible in detail in each application. Canceling the confirmation of the current position of the application and the website exists even up to the item that it is an impression which is very careful about the user's privacy aspect.


And terminal setting screen.


There is a very hard thing in typing Cloud FX. The reason is that the keyboard does not support multi-touch, for example, if you simultaneously touch "Q" and "P" on the keyboard, it is a keyboard that misunderstands that you just touched the middle "Y" key, It seems that Ars Technica is also quite dissatisfied. It is necessary to tap the key very nervously and carefully when entering letters due to non-multi-touch compatibility. If you look at the movie below, you can see if it is difficult to type in Cloud FX below. Cloud FX does not have any automatic character selection and copy & paste function, and it is a keyboard function of the level that I want to give up letter input.

Typing on the Cloud FX


And about the overall performance of Cloud FX, but as you can see the movie the behavior is still slow. Ars Technica seems to have tried to quantify the performance of Cloud FX using benchmark software, but it was impossible to benchmark tests after all as it was incompatible, crashing during the benchmark That's right. In addition, it seems that they also performed a battery test, but they failed as well. "Because it's a Firefox OS, you may want to do a browser-based benchmark", but they crash as well and even the benchmark test "Kraken" provided by Mozilla, which is developing Firefox OS, He said that he had crashed. These crashes are probably due to memory shortage, and evidence seems to have been able to execute the benchmark test firmly with ZTE Open C which is a smartphone equipped with Firefox OS.

Actual Cloud FX performance is not very stable, so it seems that there are large variations in loading time even when displaying exactly the same website, sometimes it can load in a few seconds and it takes several minutes That's right. Due to the memory relationship, it takes a very long time to load the page, and as a solution to this it means that it is impossible to read the image of the web page and JavaScript.

In Firefox OS, there are a lot of such bugs, and the solution when the device stops operation seems to be "restart".

◆ Camera
In order to compare the performances of Cloud FX cameras, photographs are taken from almost the same composition (not using flash) on five smart phones (Cloud FX, ZTE Open C, T-Mobile G1, Nexus 5, iPhone 5s) It is.

· Shoot landscape
Although the image quality of Nexus 5 and iPhone 5s is inevitable, compared with smartphones released in 2008 and Smartphones equipped with the same Firefox OS, Cloud FX's camera performance is quite low, I will understand as soon as I see it.

Cloud FX (2 MP)


ZTE Open C (3.15 MP) with Firefox OS


T-Mobile G1 (3.15 MP) which is the first released Android smartphone


Nexus 5 (8 MP)


IPhone 5s (8MP)


· Shoot flowers
The color and contrast of the pictures are quite different depending on the camera, but Cloud FX gives a sense of blurry at the level that reminds me of the earlier garage.

Cloud FX


ZTE Open C


T-Mobile G1


Nexus 5


IPhone 5s


· Shooting in a somewhat dark place
Although it is a level that I can not imagine photographs taken under the same place and same conditions, all the pictures were taken in the same place, almost the same composition, without flash.

Cloud FX


ZTE Open C


T-Mobile G1


Nexus 5


IPhone 5s


◆ Evaluation
Looking at Cloud FX so far, the evaluation that Ars Technica has made is as follows.

good point
· Plein's application is off using location information, privacy settings are great
·cheap

A bad point
· Firefox OS is inappropriate for Cloud FX OS in total. Cloud FX has no consideration for memory and processing speed, and the biggest problem of this device is that it has installed hardware with minimum specifications to operate the software
· Software (ie, Firefox OS)
· Keyboard (not multitouch unsupported, no automatic selection, no copy & paste, furthermore, pressing "Q" and "P" simultaneously, blurring that the keyboard recognizes "Y")
· Memory (the terminal is constantly running out of memory, multitasking is impossible, even important functions such as alarm function and mail check do not work in the background)
· Screen (viewing angle is terribly narrow, and display shines flickering is headache)
· Storage (hardly has capacity)
· Communication (3G line can not be used, of course 4G line can not be used)
· Camera (better than impressionist watercolor painting rather than photograph)
· Quality (extremely cheap and very plastic feeling)
· Performance (Performance is inconsistent, restarting is required frequently as a reasonable draft)
· Because the battery is not backed up, the time of the clock can not be maintained and the clock displays the default time each time the power is turned off or the battery runs out
· There is no GPS
· Firefox crashes many times even though it is equipped with Firefox OS

In the end, it says, "If you had this smartphone for the first time on this terminal, everyone will swear that they will not use smartphones for the rest of their life."

Since such a terminal equipped with Firefox OS is expected to be released from au at the end of the year, I hope that at least a memory that can be multitasked is loaded.

KDDI President Tanaka Announces Release Date of "Firefox OS" -Based Smartphone - YouTube