I have only used the ZTE phone a little since I picked it up from the Post Office a few days ago. I work from home most of the time doing remote support. What this means is I spend a lot of time in front of the computer typing and talking to others. However, I work much faster with 2 hands (and 2 monitors). I take my calls through google voice or through Skype. I’ve had a very cheap unlimited skype plan for many years. The call quality is much better than my cellphones and I can wear a headset. I know I could use a bluetooth headset with my phone but reception can be a challenge in a cement building.
The ZTE Open with Firefox OS is my prepaid phone with my local area code 340. From all the moving I have done I have come to learn the hard way that people give preference to their local area codes. Throw out that society is much more mobile now and one can get a phone number from literally anywhere. In the past few months I have also ran into another issue in care of Google. Google Voice now considers Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands as international. This wasn’t always the case. I rely on google voice heavily for my business calls. Unfortunately the lack of support from Google has left me at a disadvantage. Unlinking Google Voice from my Sprint phone decreases the ability to get a hold of me when the google voice number is printed on all my business forms. To call my local area code of 340 would cost about 2 cents a minute. This is in fact cheaper than my prepaid plan of which I pay 5 or 10 cents a minute for. Contrary to what looks like simple math ($.02 is < $.05) I am only paying $10 a month to have a local number. My prepaid balance rolls over to the next month as long as I remember to Top Up before the due date.
I have not been dissuaded yet by the OS. I still see lots of potential in having HTML5 apps that can work across ecosystems. I wondered if someone in their 50’s or older could use this phone and I’m concerned that the screen would be too small for them. Typing or just reading the screen could be difficult.
Here is what I have accomplished with the phone thus far.
- I have set an alarm which went off at the proper time.
- I have updated some of the apps
- I have changed my bottom primary icons by removing 2 and adding a new icon (gmail)
- I have added a few apps
- I have searched for apps
- I have done some web browsing
- I changed my lock screen wallpaper
- I have manually added contacts
- I have actually made a call with my phone
- I setup Usage to track data although I have no data plan it will track wifi usage
- I took a picture
- I read my email
I’ve also done some more research on the phone to find out that I can’t update to 1.1 just yet. I also saw several sites with incorrect info about the phone.
- It DOES use a normal headphone jack
- It DOES take a regular sim card
- It DOES come with a 4 gig MicroSD
I’m sure there are more inaccuracies out there but these were the the glaring ones.