100% spot on. Too many features missing. The flashing procedure is problematic as well (for the ZTE "open" C you need a custom patch found in a bug report, and you have to be extremely carefull not to brick the device.)
I purchased a ZTE Open C just to try out Firefox and the internet browsing experience. You can't change tabs unless you scroll all the way to the top, otherwise the address bar is hidden. Needless to say, browsing becomes very taxing if you're viewing even moderately large pages.
> You can't change tabs unless you scroll all the way to the top, otherwise the address bar is hidden.
This is very common feedback and I assure you it hasn't fallen on deaf ears.
From version 2.1 the address bar will show as soon as you start to scroll up and you'll be able to manually trigger it from the statusbar as well (see the UI mockups in the blog post). You will also be able to switch between browser windows by swiping from the edge of the screen. After using this for a few weeks I really miss it when I use Android!
Note that this thread discusses the "I actually want to scroll to the top" use case, which might take a while for long pages. People in that estimate that this is a Common Thing you want to do.
The GP complains about being _required_ to scroll to the top to reach the address bar/the tabs, which is plain wrong (but might be a case of bad discoverability?).
That is confusing. The behavior is similar/equal to the Android Firefox: Scroll down, address bar goes off-screen. Want it back? Scroll a small amount up, albeit rapidly. Think 'pull down' on the content.
Did you mias that (we can argue about whether that's intuitive) or does that plain not work for you? Scrolling back to the top should definitely be unnecessary..
Works just fine for me (typing on Android, in Aurora).
> Want it back? Scroll a small amount up, albeit rapidly.
Doesn't work. AFAIK, there isn't a way to show the address bar unless you scroll all the way up to the top. I'm aware that Firefox on Android has the behaviour you mention.
Also, I haven't yet found a way to quickly scroll up to the top of a page.
That behavior of Firefox on Android is just plain stupid and broken, even when it's working.
It's another great example of how the Firefox developers have added in functionality that just makes the browsing experience less efficient or more confusing, without any real benefit. Getting a sliver more of screen space just isn't worth the inconvenience this "feature" brings, especially on larger mobile devices.
Disabling it via 'Settings' -> 'Display' -> 'Scroll title bar' was the first thing I had to do when trying out Firefox on Android, and that was just to bring it up to a minimal level of usability.
Yes, Chrome on Android does appear to be broken in a similar way. I'm not sure about Safari on iOS, though. Regardless, two or even three of them being broken in the same way doesn't mean that they aren't broken. The state of being broken in independent of how many different systems are broken.
I purchased a ZTE Open C just to try out Firefox and the internet browsing experience. You can't change tabs unless you scroll all the way to the top, otherwise the address bar is hidden. Needless to say, browsing becomes very taxing if you're viewing even moderately large pages.