ZTE to Sell Unlocked Firefox OS Phones on eBay for $80

Do you want to take Firefox OS for a spin? Do you want a super-cheap phone? Do you want both? Chinese phone giant ZTE could have you covered, as it’s planning to offer its Firefox OS phone, the ZTE Open, direct to consumers via the eBay marketplace. At $80, it’s clear that Open isn’t going to be a powerhouse, but it sure does look to be an attractive solution for first-time phone buyers, those who don’t need a powerful phone, or those who might want a second unlocked phone to carry around for when they travel – that’s right, unlocked.

What $80 gets you is a neat-looking orange phone packing a 480×320 3.5″ display, 1.0GHz Cortex A5 SoC, 256MB of RAM, 3G connectivity and 2GB of storage, expandable up to 32GB via a microSD slot. Isn’t it impressive that many phones don’t have expandable storage, but this innocent little model does?

Not familiar with Firefox OS? Don’t fret, most people aren’t, but you are able to familiarize yourself thanks to Mozilla’s Firefox OS simulator.

Given the ultra-fierce marketplace that is mobile, I think it’s smart thing for Mozilla to go after the low-end market first; the phone’s already been available in Spain for a little while, and is slated to hit more European countries soon. We’ll see if the phone is able to grow into more powerful devices as the platform continues to grow.

Oh – did I mention that Firefox OS is 100% open-source? Yeah – there’s a lot to love here.