Mozilla Unveils First Two Firefox OS Phones

After news of its development throughout all of last year, Mozilla's Firefox OS platform for smartphones has made an official debut on two phones that will ship to developers working on apps. The phones will ship to developers in February, but won't become available to everybody until later this year. As we've reported, Mozilla is primarily targeting emerging markets with the phones, but there have been signs that they may be marketed throughout Europe and in the U.S. Here are more details.

You can find Mozilla Hacks' post on the new phones here.  According to the post, the phones have the following specs and names:

The Keon model

• CPU Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 1Ghz
• UMTS 2100/1900/900 (3G HSPA)
• GSM 850/900/1800/1900 (2G EDGE)
• Screen 3.5″ HVGA Multitouch
• 3 MP Camera
• 4GB ROM, 512 MB RAM
• MicroSD, Wifi N, Light and proxmity Sensor, G-Sensor, GPS, MicroUSB
• 1580 mAh battery
• Over the air updates
• Unlocked, add your own SIM card

The Peak model

• CPU Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 1.2Ghz x2.
• UMTS 2100/1900/900 (3G HSPA).
• GSM 850/900/1800/1900 (2G EDGE).
• Screen 4.3″ qHD IPS Multitouch.
• Camera 8 MP (back) + 2 MP (front).
• 4 GB (ROM) and 512 (RAM).
• MicroSD, Wifi N, Light and proxmity Sensor, G-Sensor, GPS, MicroUSB, Flash (camera).
• Battery 1800 mAh.

Mozilla has been very busy posting materials and presentations for developers interested in Firefox OS. You can check out Mozilla Hacks' huge collection of slideshows and videos about Firefox OS, aimed at developers, here. With these two phones, Mozilla has shown that even though it won't be involved in producing hardware, its focus on being a player on the smartphone scene is unwavering.

Qualcomm and Mozilla's hardware partners had previously discussed emerging markets in Latin America and other regions as the sweet spots for delivering Firefox OS phones. But ZTE officials at CES had been discussing possibilities for phones in both Europe and the U.S.

If Firefox OS is to be arriving all around the globe in a larger push than was previously discussed, it's going to need a very healthy ecosystem of apps to attract users.