Firefox OS is coming to Japan and doing it in style.
Announced at a KDDI press event in Tokyo today, the Fx0 is a striking 4.7-inch smartphone with a transparent shell and a home button decorated with the golden Firefox logo embracing the Earth. It runs the latest version of Mozilla’s web-centric mobile OS and was designed by noted Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka, whose previous collaboration with KDDI produced a phone worthy of making it into the Museum of Modern Art’s collection. With the Fx0, Yoshioka has worked around the familiar outlines of LG’s G3 design (LG is the silent partner producing the device) and adapted them to a smaller size while producing a delightful aesthetic in the process. Like a watch with a window showing its internal mechanism, this phone’s exposed electronics are a subtle reminder of its technical sophistication – plus, that Firefox home button is just plain cool.
It’s different, surely, but…. No. Just no.
I would really like the see-thru body of the Fx0 if it wasn’t GOLD!
I think it would be pretty cool, if they manga’d it up. You know throw a bunch of animated characters in various battle poses in various spots. So you’d have like a different character for each major component.
I wouldn’t buy it even then, but I’d kind of respect it. Maybe, hello kitty? I don’t think they’ve ever turned down any branding options.
If gamers want windows in PC cases, I don’t get it either, this might be a goer if you can rig the insides with flashing LED’s and water cooling.
Too bad it’s shitty style! O_o
to present an own — in your view non-‘shitty’ — design.
pica
Why? I can just point to any other modern smartphone for a better design.
C’mon buddy, the cover is transparent, you can always put MLP stickers underneath, you’ll look 20% cooler, guarantee !
In 10 seconds flat?
Yeah, but not sure the phone would boot in that time.
Something that does not look like a Gameboy from the early nineties? Yet another phone platform…
It looks fantastic, not to mention fresh. Why all the negativity, Thom?
They’re going for the prison market.
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-ipod-of-prison
But it’s “openness” isn’t an asset in the prison system so oh well…
An ugly transparent case for your phone… *yawn*.
Me wants…
But then i would love to see a FFOS device in a store near me.
It is a really sharp design. Very nice.
Too bad I’d never see it in its protective case.
Isn’t it possible to make a protection case from transparent material?
Even though it seems that many people dislike the design and appearance of this phone, I’d like to say that at least it looks interesting. To me, most smartphones look the same, no matter if they are white with a silver border, or black with a golden border. Some are equipped with diamonds, others with colorful stickers. But after all, they look similarly. The “see through case” concept, common among case modders in the PC area for decades, is something that I would say is new regarding smartphones. Please keep in mind that I’m not heavily interested in smartphones (because I find them mostly boring), so it’s quite possible that I could be missing the fact that there already was a smartphone with a transparent case. Furthermore, that what can be seen inside the case isn’t all that interesting. A printed circuit board and a battery. And the front… well, the same as all the other smartphones… but having FirefoxOS running could make it at least a bit more interesting again. 🙂
I can see it’s not very popular with osnews readers, but i kinda like it.
Not a fan of firefoxos at all, so i couldn’t care less.
The phone itself, though … aside from the gold accents and the weird globe thing, i kinda like it.
Edited 2014-12-24 08:21 UTC
The point of using FirefoxOS instead of Android is that you can cut down on the hardware capabilities (RAM in particular, FxOS runs even on 128MB RAM). This device has 1.5GB of RAM, so there is no “technical” reason not to have Andoid on it. Maybe it can fly with consumers that want to “make a statement” of some kind, which is a rather small group.
I read the article’s headline and first line, and my brain instantly jumped to “oooh, someone’s finally using transparent OLED screens in a consumer device?”, but alas, no. Now that would have made me want this phone! I am mildly amused by how much the gold mesh of the case makes me think of the old Star Trek communicators, but I’m honestly not sure whether I actually like the phone’s look or not. Certainly gets points for trying something new though.
And there’s your design problem.
Article doesn’t mention expected price, or even the price range, which is the primary motivation for buying a Firefox OS phone.
The article is on the Verge – you surely don’t expect them to bother with practical details like that! </sarcasm>
The price has been covered elsewhere. It’s not cheap: Â¥50,000, which translates to around US$415, or £270. See:
http://www.gsmarena.com/lg_fx0_is_a_transparent_smartphone_running_…
The phone that I really want is the phone that can run Android, Firefox OS, Ubuntu Touch, and Jolla Sailfish simultaneously in separate VMs – or at least via multi-boot.
Yeah, battery life would be impressively short, but I’m rarely away from the power grid for long anyway, and my current phone has more raw computing power than the desktop on which I first ran Windows 98 and (Mandrake) Linux.
We should no longer feel constrained to stick with a one-OS-per-mobile-device mentality.
Dude, that’s a serious real-life problem that need all our attention…
You came here looking for serious, real-life problems?
Not fantasy enough. Needs more unicorn farts.
This is a perfect example of what we say when a transparent body doesn’t necessary yield a better style. And on the of that, the golden Firefox logo makes the home button looks more like somebody has touched it with a greasy thumb… well, my 2cents.