Truly ushering in the launch of Mozilla?s Firefox OS into the Indian smartphone space, Intex Technologies will launch its new ?Cloud FX? smartphone on Monday. The company claims this will be India?s cheapest smartphone. That is a hard bargain to push as just on Friday Spice has announced its Spice Fire One Mi ? FX 1 at Rs 2,299. In all probability Intex might go to a price point just under Rs 2,000.
The Spice Fire One Mi ? FX 1 comes with 2G Dual sim and has a 1 GHz processor, 2.5 G connectivity, 8.89 cm HVGA capacitive touchscreen and 2MP primary camera + 1.3 MP front camera. The nearest Android competitor would be the Micromax Bolt A24, priced at Rs 2,555 on Flipkart.com. At least on paper, the Firefox offerings seem to have an advantage at the moment.
The new price points might prompt a lot of entry level mobile phone users to make the switch to a smartphone. However, on the flipside it is unlikely for a smartphone to last the three or four years and average smartphone users ends up using his device. The long term cost of ownership also seems to be much lower for the feature phone and might put off some users. Still, access to the Internet might prompt many users to overlook these points.
However, there is no doubt that with the launch of Firefox OS in India, the entry level customer now has much more choice than before.
