After a false start and a brief period of uncertainty, wireless carrier Movistar quietly released the Alcatel One Touch Fire C smartphone, which is powered by the mobile Firefox operating system initially coded by the Mozilla Foundation as an open source project. As the first Firefox OS smartphone in Costa Rica, this mobile device presents an alternative to the Android, iPhone and Windows Phone universe respectively ruled by tech giants Google, Apple and Microsoft.

 

Here are the basics about the Alcatel One Touch Fire C Firefox smartphone in Costa Rica:

 

• Connectivity: Bluetooth, GPS, FM radio, GPRS/EDGE: GPRS / EDGE | 21.1 Mbps HSDPA | Wifi (WLAN) | Wifi Hotspot |
• Touch Screen: 3,5″ HVGA, 320 x 480 resolution
• Multimedia: 3 MP camera, MP3 and MP4 player, secondary VGA camera, external speaker, 30 frame per second video player.
• Battery: Li-Ion 1300 mAh
• Memory: 4 GB internal with a 32 GB Micro SD capacity, which Movistar does not initially include.

 

The current apps for this phone cover the basics: Facebook, Twitter, photo editing, music library, maps, instant messaging, etc. The Firefox Marketplace, however, is growing quickly with new apps such as PacMan, SoundCloud, Box, PDF Viewer, Pinterest, and many more. It is important to note that the Firefox OS is heavily dependent on HTML5 technology.

 

For 39,000 colones (about $80) on a prepaid plan, the Alcatel One Touch Fire C is actually cheaper than the Android Duos Plus, which is another entry-level smartphone offered by Movistar in Costa Rica. A one-year contract subscription will cost $0 for the smartphone and 12,000 colones per month (about $24) on a 4G data plan. Below is a video review from last year, but please keep in mind that the reviewer is handling a prototype device.