Alcatel OneTouch bets on Firefox to bring developing countries online

When it comes to giving people a smartphone experience for as little money as possible, an increasingly large number of manufacturers are betting on Mozilla’s Firefox OS. A case in point is Alcatel Onetouch, which on Sunday launched the Orange Klif smartphone.

Despite being an entry-level device, aimed at Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean, it looks like Alcatel has tried to trick the phone out as much as possible. According to the company, the new device offers connectivity speeds of up to 21 Mbps, is dual SIM, and includes a two-megapixel camera and micro-SD slot.

You are however going to have to make a few compromises. For instance, the screen is only 3.5-inches big and the battery is only a 1300mAh unit, meaning that you’re unlikely to ever get a full day’s use out of it.

Read more: Alcatel One Touch Pixi review: cheap, cheery and useful

Then again, Alcatel Onetouch is probably betting that the people buying this phone care more about being able to get online inexpensively than they do about its battery life, or the fact that it only has 1Ghz dual-core CPU and can only take 2MP photos.

Making the device dual SIM is particularly important as a number of more established smartphone manufacturers have ignored this feature when introducing their devices to emerging markets. Another feature which remains important to the Klif’s target market is the FM radio, something that some may have feared would go missing with the web-based Firefox OS.

The device is expected to retail for around US$40.