The official launch of the Firefox OS by Mozilla is probably set to kick Android in the mobile backend with four manufacturers stating their desire to build phones which run on the Firefox OS. At the MWC, where the Firefox OS was announced next to several other important announcements, the first two phones to run on this new OS were also seen- the Alcatel One Touch Fire and the ZTE Open.
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The launch of the new OS
The present ones like Windows Phone, iOS and Android are a closed source and this is where the new Firefox OS is to leave them all behind. Being based on open source, it will be able to interact with HTML-5 based apps in a way like visiting sites via a browser. This implies that the Firefox phones will be just browsers simply put as "open web devices".
The reasons which work in the favor of the Firefox OS
• A Browser based operating system
Being a browser based operating system; web applications like Facebook will be readily available without even the need for Mozilla to have an army of programmers to write apps for the new OS.
• A wonderful beginning
With huge demand for this OS by a number of carriers like LG electronics, ZTE, Alcatel, Huawei, Geeksphone and most probably Sony, the new OS has surely got a flying start.
• "There's web for that"
Although the distribution ecosystem of iOS is strong and the apps of Android are what make it apt in the mobile backend, the Firefox is claiming to counter all that with the slogan that Kovacs had for it "There's web for that".
• Too many apps
As far as competing with Android specifically is concerned, apps are the most important part of Android. The Firefox OS is already flaunting a decent little ecosystem of calendar and email apps in addition to Nokia's HERE maps service. The main advantage that Firefox OS has is that it has around 8million HTML developers in comparison to just hundreds of thousands of iOS and Android developers.
Apart from the wide popularity Firefox OS has already gained popularity before launch and the number of features it is gifting to the users, the good news is that Mozilla is targeting the low-to-mid end market which means that this OS will be available to a wide variety of users and not just restricted to a few. Lets just wait and watch
Design:
The Ascend has its charm mainly because of its glossy plastic build material on face and with polished chromes on sides. The edges are rounded making it look stylish. The phone measures 4.5 inches by height, 2.4 inches by wide and 0.55 inches by deep. It is on par with various other smartphones in the matter of pocketability. Ascend weighs 4.7 ounces and has very solid feel when held in hand.
The touch screen measures 3.5 inches making it optimal for touch usability and visibility. The display has a resolution of 480×320 pixels and supports nearly 262,000 colors. Of course it is not an advanced screen available in the market but for the handsets feature set and price tag, it doesn't need to be also. The display covers majority of Ascends space along with it has a trackball, 4 hard key buttons like Back, Menu, End and Talk keys.
Huawei has done a fantastic job tucking the volume rocker, camera button, microSD card slot and power button on right and left sides of the phone. The 3.2 mega pixel camera houses on the plasticky back cover. Coming to the Interface of Ascend, it has a rectangular onscreen navigation bar that contains large, more or less cartoonish finger friendly icons that open phone book, app tray, text composition window, contact list and view of home screens.
Huawei has embossed another mark on Ascend by giving this smartphone a nine panel home screen in the form of a grid design. The Ascend has several icons that actually differ from the Android standard, including latest icons for gallery, dialer and calculator. Regardless of visual noise of interface, Ascend is perhaps easy to navigate.
Features:
Price $150
Camera 3.2 MP
Operating system Android 2.1
Memory 512MB internal, 16 GB via card slot
Battery life 3.5 hours of talk time and 12.4 days of stand by time
The Ascend comes with a satisfying set of software and hardware features. You will find speakerphone, voice dialing, multimedia and threaded text messaging, and full range of wireless options like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and 3G. The phone book entries are limited to the available memory and each entry provides a room for multiple numbers, IM handles, e-mail addresses, photo callers IDs, huawei tablet group IDs and many more. You can also merge contact information from several accounts such as Outlook, Gmail like with every Android phone.
There are many Android 2.1 usual offerings, like Google Maps, HTML browser, Navigation, Gmail, YouTube, Places, Latitude social location app and an audio recorder. As already mentioned the interface is apparent with nine applications that come preloaded on phone. The Cricket's branded apps and shortcuts are a browser, account manager, storefront. You will also find third party apps like Photobucket, Midnight Bowling 2, and UNO. Frustratingly, none of these applications can be removed from the Settings menu.
For e-mail purpose, the Ascend provides Gmail, IMAP, Exchange accounts and POP3. The phone includes a camera of 3.2 megapixels. As it is an Android phone it has onscreen controls also to toggle between video and camera mode and for viewing previous picture. Even though this onscreen button is present we prefer to go for hardware shutter instead. The absence of flash makes the picture quality of indoor shots a little blurry and dull. The video quality is OK for a camera phone, except some choppiness while playback. Android makes it simple to share pictures and images through YouTube, Facebook, e-mail, Twitter and many other networks.
Huawei Ascend Review
The Ascend uses stock Android music player that sorts tunes by album, artist, song name and playlists. Music player however offers a nice experience especially for those who are new to the Android platform. As said earlier, the greatest drawback on Ascend is the decision to use 2.5 mm headset jack instead of standard 3.5 mm jack.
Performance:
Unfortunately, the call quality of Ascend is poor. The conversation lacks a continuous flow and some occasional background noise occurs. The speakerphone also has very low volume. Even though Ascend is 3G capable it gives just 2.5G speeds most of the time. The included phone's 600 MHz processor makes it tad sluggish at times, but it is acceptable for phone's price tag, to be fair. The battery life is rated as 3.5 hours of talk time and 12.4 days of stand by time.
