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Mozilla plans to start working with wireless carriers and hardware makers to bring Firefox OS phones to market starting this year. Now the software company has unveiled the first phones designed to run the Firefox operating system: a developer phone with very basic specs.

That makes sense, since Firefox OS doesn’t really need bleeding edge hardware. Firefox apps are written in HTML5 and other web languages, so basically all of your apps are web apps designed to run like native apps.

Mozilla is working with Geeksphone and Telefonica on the first developer handset, including a model called the Keon that features:

• 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 processor
• 3.5 inch, 480 x 320 pixel display
• 512MB RAM
• 4GB of storage
• 3MP camera
• 1580mAh battery
• GSM, HSPA
• MicroSD, MicroUSB 802.11n, light and proximity sensors, GPS, G-sensor

The phones will be unlocked, allowing developers to use their own SIM cards.

Geeksphone says there’s also a second model called the Peak which will feature a 4.3 inch, 960 x 540 pixel display, a more powerful 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor, an 8MB rear camera, 512MB of RAM, and an 1800 mAh battery.

Developers will be able to get their hands on the Keon and Peak preview phones starting in February.

The idea is to provide hardware that will let software makers write and test apps to see how they perform on Firefox OS devices. You can also use the Firefox OS Simulator to test apps in a desktop web browser, but if you really want to know how things run on a phone, the best way is to test them… on a phone.