ZTE Open (Unlocked)

Pros Very inexpensive for an unlocked smartphone. Robust Web browser.

Cons Unfinished software. Dim screen. Poor camera and GPS. Bottom Line We're giving the unlocked ZTE Open with the Firefox OS huge points for its very reasonable price, but the software needs more polish before it's consumer-ready.

By Sascha Segan

"Remember who this phone is for," a nervous Mozilla rep told me when he sent me the ZTE Open, the first Firefox OS phone and one of the cheapest unlocked smartphones you'll find. At $79 (exclusively through eBay, where it's currently sold out), the Open isn't designed to compete with even entry-level, subsidized major-carrier smartphones. It's aimed at countries where phones never get subsidized and most people make less than $100 a week. By selling a thousand units on eBay, Mozilla wants to make the phone available to U.S. developers so they can write apps for what the organization hopes will be a growing platform.

But there could be a lot of demand for a $79, practically throwaway smartphone here in the states. It could make for a great first phone for a kid, or, say, a backup phone for international travel. So it's worth looking at this phone (and the Firefox OS) to see if it can open up a whole new category for American smartphones.

Why Unlocked?
Before I get to the real review, I should probably address why it's important that this smartphone is unlocked. After all, many smartphones are available in the U.S. for $79 with contract, or $79 plus a two-year installment plan. But owning an unlocked phone lets you use the cheapest possible prepaid services, or none at all. The Open is compatible with AT&T's and T-Mobile's networks, so you can dip into virtual carriers who use those networks, like GoSmart, Consumer Cellular, MetroPCS, ReadySIM, and Simple Mobile. (Check out the Best Prepaid SIM Cards, for an idea of some of your options.) If you're willing to put up with often-shaky customer service, you can save huge amounts of money.

Unlocked phones are also perfect for traveling, because you can pop in an international prepaid SIM like one from Telestial Passport, OneSimCard, or Maxroam, or single-country SIMs like Rebelfone sells. That way, you save huge sums over U.S. carriers' roaming charges.

Physical Features, Networking, and Call Quality
The U.S. model of the ZTE Open is made mostly of soft-touch plastic, in a striking Firefox orange color, which gives the phone some personality. I've also seen the gray international version, which looks a lot more generic. The phone is comfortable to hold at 4.5 by 2.44 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and 3.84 ounces. The volume rocker on the side and the Power button on top are small and made of slick plastic, but they're solid enough.

The phone's screen is downright depressing. It's not the low 320-by-480-pixel resolution, which is understandable at this price and size; it's that the screen is dim. It appears to be submerged a foot beneath the surrounding plastic, and has inconsistent touch response.

I was deeply disappointed by the Open's GPS, which is the oldest, slowest, and most basic kind available. There's no Wi-Fi location assistance or tower triangulation, so location services don't work at all unless you have a clear view of the sky, and the GPS chip takes a considerable time to lock in. That means that no location-based apps, including maps and Yelp, can tell where you are when you're indoors. Bummer.

The 1200mAh battery in the Open carried the phone for 6 hours, 18 minutes of talk time. That's not great, but it's not a big battery.

There are two models of the Open right now, both of which offer quad-band GSM voice calling: The orange one has 3G on U.S. and Canadian bands, but not global bands, while the gray, global one has 3G on foreign bands, but not U.S. bands. Running DSLReports' JavaScript speed test, I got around 2Mbps down on T-Mobile's HSPA+ network. On our much faster office Wi-Fi network, I saw 2.7Mbps down, so the apparent speed limitations are in the phone and browser, not the network.

Voice calling is adequate. RF reception was pretty good in my tests, and call quality was perfectly decent from quiet locations. Noise cancellation turned voice quality thin and tinny through the earpiece. Volume in both the earpiece and speakerphone are acceptable for indoor and outdoor locations.

Multimedia and Photography
According to the specs, the Open has a 3-megapixel camera. But the camera only takes 2-megapixel photos "to help current users maximize their data plans," according to Mozilla. The camera app has no apparent settings or modes at all, although there's an after-the-fact photo editor that lets you crop and apply filters. The phone records 352-by-288 videos.

Do not expect quality images here. I saw about a one-second camera delay, and soft images with color noise and lens flare all over the place. There's no front camera. You can share images directly to email, SMS, or Twitter from the gallery app.

The music player is very attractive, showing a grid of album covers and substituting brightly colored, abstract art if you don't have album art. You can sort by the typical parameters and create playlists. The phone played AAC, MP3, and OGG files without a problem, but not WMA. As for video, MP4 and H.264 video up to 640-by-480 was solid—no other formats or larger sizes, please, and certainly no DRM. There's also an FM radio, with custom preset options.

That restriction—no DRM (and no plugins)—creates some problems for Web video. The Firefox OS has a working YouTube app, but sites like Netflix and MTV.com failed to stream video because the browser couldn't handle their proprietary video plug-ins.

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