Mozilla said it won’t be launching its own hardware to run the in-development Firefox OS when it’s finished, but the company has just announced a “Developer Preview Phone” for putting the OS through its paces. It’s not quite the same as the mystery device we saw sporting Firefox OS at CES, but its specs seem almost as basic. The handset will feature a 3.5-inch HVGA touchscreen and 3-megapixel camera on the outside, with a 1GHz Snapdragon S1 CPU, half a gig of RAM, 4GB of microSD-expandable storage and WiFi, 2G and 3G antennae inside. Sure, that processor isn’t a beast, but an 800MHz S1 does just fine in the Lumia 610. A 1580mAh battery will keep the carrier-unlocked phone running, and Mozilla is promising OTA updates to Firefox OS to keep devs, well, up to date. At the moment, we have no idea how much the phone will cost, but the first units are expected to be available next month.
About Shelly Palmer
Shelly Palmer is the Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and CEO of The Palmer Group, a consulting practice that helps Fortune 500 companies with technology, media and marketing. Named LinkedIn’s “Top Voice in Technology,” he covers tech and business for Good Day New York, is a regular commentator on CNN and writes a popular daily business blog. He's a bestselling author, and the creator of the popular, free online course, Generative AI for Execs. Follow @shellypalmer or visit shellypalmer.com.