Spanish smartphone startup Geeksphone became the first company to start selling Firefox OS devices earlier this year when it launched two developer handsets, Keon and Peak. Since then Mozilla’s smartphone platform has already seen a commercial rollout in the country through Telefonica and ZTE, and now Geeksphone is following up with a slightly beefier version of the original Peak aimed at non-developers.
The Peak+ is priced at €149 during the preorder period, after which it will be sold at a yet to be announced “standard price” via the startup’s online store in mid-September. For that you can expect double the RAM at 1GB, as well as a "superior look and feel" and "premium materials” for a more polished finish and pleasant touch.
Aside from this specs remain largely the same. There’s a dual-core Qualcomm 1.2GHz processor, 8MP rear camera, 2MP front-facing camera, tri-band UMTS/HSPA and just 4GB of storage, which is complemented by microSD support and 25GB of free cloud storage. This is hardly a high-end phone by today’s standards but that’s to be expected given Mozilla’s goal of opening up cheap, functional phones to the web in emerging markets.
On the software side of things, the Peak+ will come preloaded with the latest Firefox OS 1.1 release. Mozilla says this includes all the things people need from a smartphone out of the box – calls, messaging, email, camera and more -- as well as built-in social features with Facebook and Twitter, Here Maps with offline capabilities and smart walking, driving and public transit directions, and more.
With Firefox OS, Mozilla is hoping to change how developers today must re-write their apps to run on the various closed mobile-phone platforms available. Apps are based on HTML 5 but will reportedly still look and feel like a native app. They can be downloaded through the Firefox Marketplace, and Mozilla is even including a curious feature for one-time use apps that lets you load them up without installing the app on your phone.
https://www.techspot.com/news/53364-geeksphone-announces-peak-firefox-os-smartphone.html
