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Mozilla and partners to bring back flip phones and sliders with Firefox OS

The established players are staging flashy events for its devices, but Mozilla has roped in an impressive number of new partners off-stage. Working with carriers spanning the globe from east to west – KDDI, LG U+ and Verizon Wireless – the maker of Firefox OS plans to resurrect old form factors.

The touchscreen consolidated phone shapes into one – the ubiquitous rectangle – but Firefox phones will soon come in flip, slide and other form factors.

Set to launch next year, the new phones will try to strike a balance between the simplicity of regular phones (calling and texting) with the advanced functionality that modern smartphones are optimized for.

Earlier this week Monohm showed the Runcible, a wooden puck of a phone.

In the meantime Alcatel created the Orange Klif, a dual-SIM slate phone with 21Mbps 3G data connectivity. It’s the first Firefox OS phone with a MediaTek chipset.

Orange will be bringing Firefox OS to 13 markets spread across Africa and the Middle East. The Klif in particular will be priced under $40/€35 with a voice/text/data bundle. It will launch in Q2 in the following countries: Egypt, Senegal, Tunisia, Cameroon, Botswana, Madagascar, Mali, The Ivory Coast, Jordan, Niger, Kenya, Mauritius and Vanuatu.

Mozilla is preparing Firefox for NFC-based mobile payments to follow in the footsteps of market leaders iOS and Android.

Source | Via

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