back to article Ex-Nokia team unveil Jolla smartphone with added Sailfish OS

Jolla, the Finnish startup made up of Nokia executives purged by Stephen Elop, has put its first smartphones on sale, but only for 450 people who come to Finland and pick them up. "We've created a world-class platform. Users will be getting more choice," co-founder Marc Dillon told the BBC. The 4.5-inch smartphone carries a 1 …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Chairo
    Happy

    Sounds interesting

    I hope El Reg will get one of those for review.

  2. Andus McCoatover
    Windows

    I'll check my g-mail

    Stuck my name down for one, and as I live in Finland....

  3. Khaptain Silver badge

    No NSA please

    If there are no NSA, Google, UserData being sent to third parties hidden procedures then I want one.

    If it is a good phone, can do maps and the web then that's enough for me. Looking forward to seeing the evolution, thumbs up for the guys taking on this venture. I wish them success.

    1. wyatt

      Re: No NSA please

      They've 'Here' mapping from Nokia on them.

      I've my name down as well for a pre-order, however until it is reviewed a bit more I won't be taking the plunge.. I'd be interested on seeing the Sailfish OS on a Samsung, see how it runs.

    2. wheelybird

      Re: No NSA please

      They're using the fact that they don't collaborate with the NSA as one of the selling points.

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: No NSA please

        >They've 'Here' mapping from Nokia on them.

        That should have been in the article! Without it, I just looked at the specs and looked at the price (not far off the well-thought of LG G2, and more than a Nexus 5) and thought - "what have I missed here?"

        1. Gob Smacked

          Re: No NSA please

          @Dave126: 'I just looked at the specs ... and thought - "what have I missed here?"'

          That this operating system is far more lightweight than Android.

  4. Bad Beaver

    Review it!

    A venture this bold deserves support.

  5. Bub

    "scramble for apps like Blackberry"

    A little bit unfair, as Blackberry can also run Android apps

  6. dervheid
    Thumb Up

    Wouldn't it be poetic justice

    If this were to turn out to be the phone that Nokia 'should' have made.

    Wish them all the luck that they're going to need.

    And yes, I AM an ex Nokia user, now gone to Android.

    WindowsPhone can kiss my substantial, hairy arse.

    1. Andus McCoatover

      Re: Wouldn't it be poetic justice

      ....the phone that Nokia 'should' have made.....

      Wasn't that the N9?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This will follow its parent destiny....

    ... a much hyped phone people bought happily and the ditched as soon as possible, as they realize it's going nowhere.

    1. Jess

      Re: This will follow its parent destiny....

      > ..they realize it's going nowhere.

      Much like WP7 then? (And WP8 when 9 comes out)

    2. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

      Re: This will follow its parent destiny....

      N9 can deliver a downvote quite well. See?

  8. Longrod_von_Hugendong
    Thumb Up

    Yes, i would like...

    A review of this please., sounds interesting and what could have happened if Nokia hadn't dropped the ball.

  9. msknight

    Bought one yesterday

    I'm one of those people who had their name down and i got my purchase e-mail two days ago.

    Call me a sucker, call me whatever you wish (I've been called some whacko things in my time) but I have an iPhone 4s and and S2 on my hip and I'm hacked off with them both. The iPhone is hateful to use (iOS7 is a b**ch) and I've spent the last year getting all my blogs and services out of Google's systems. Only my YouTube account to go now.

    The phone hardware is pretty meh, but sometimes you've just got to take a chance. I'm expecting the gesture interface to be one of those things that has to be grown in to. I'm also not liking the links to China; I'm pretty anti-chinese cheap labour abuse at the moment, but what choice do we have?

    1. DJMoley

      Re: Bought one yesterday

      You just need to learn dude. Go to an Apple store and they will teach you. lol or read the manual if you know how. Alot of people may hate Apple or Samsung. Only another giant company would be able to compete but even HTC are going down the pan.

  10. Visionary

    Don't think it's a good idea

    You don't have any chance. I don't mean to sound harsh. Even though your phone may run android apps. The battle is just between a few. Blackberry once had the lead and are melting even though they have decent phones. Nokia ex employees, your better of supporting the new giants instead of competing in an arena where you will lose the battle. It don't matter if u have demand for It or if you think your phone or OS is any good. Stop what your doing, you are wasting your cash and passion. Don't say I never warned you. Your new phone will never survive. Just take a look at your design.... Come on do you really think it's an iphone 5S beater ? Your design is the same as any other phone.Wake up Nokia ex employees. You don't have the cash that the giants have and will get eaten alive. Your adventuring into a world which is now ruled by tech giants like Apple and Samsung. Quit now before it's too late.

    1. wheelybird

      Re: Don't think it's a good idea

      Well you've completely missed not only the point of the phone, but evidently also lessons in spelling and grammar.

      Jolla have themselves stated that they not in it to compete with Android/Apple. They know they won't become a dominant player. Their goal is simply to sell enough handsets to be a profitable niche market. This phone attracts people who want more choice than simply Android or iOS. You're obviously happy with those two options, so you know what; why don't you not buy one and pretend that the Jolla phone doesn't exist rather than embark on a poorly-written rant about how you, as the technology expert and prophet that you undoubtedly are, don't think it will succeed? Then perhaps revisit the days when you said that Android had no chance at that the market's dominated by Blackberry and Symbian.

      1. DJMoley

        Re: Don't think it's a good idea

        Yeah thats what you think. All you people that replied to my note. You know that they will run short of cash. They need a new adventure.

        1. Vic

          Re: Don't think it's a good idea

          > All you people that replied to my note.

          Replied to you? This is the first post under the DJMoley account.

          Unless you're confessing to using sock-puppets...

          Vic.

          1. DJMoley

            Re: Don't think it's a good idea

            Vic, you are one complete spanner. Like I said it's my opinion. I don't hate Nokia, I just think they won't succeed. it will be a small number and to keep the business running and the development to fix issues. I don't see them having a chance. Look what happened to the playbook by blackberry. What a disaster. Even the CEO believed it would work. Apple took over and the lead.

            Stop crying people and stop wasting your time looking at crappy phones.

            This Jolla Whoppa is just another already dying piece of rubbish where they are just copying the giants. I've seen the website. There ain't nothing new. They don't have the marketing power , costs or funds to support themselves.

            Instead they launch a beta tester.

            Anyway I've said what I want and will keep my strong message ahead of this thread.

            Good luck

    2. Deej

      Re: Don't think it's a good idea

      Surely even the doomsayers have to applaud the efforts and the spirit that has gone into this handset?

      These guys were laid off from Nokia; told they were surplus to requirements. They could have all gone home, played on their Xbox and moped around the house because they couldn't find another job (making a wild assumption there!), but they didn't - they got together and tried to do something different. Surely that in itself is worthy of some encouragement?

      Just because *you* don't think it will work, doesn't mean that others do. I'm looking forward to reading a review, and highly likely to buy a handset when it reaches our shores.

      1. cambsukguy

        Re: Don't think it's a good idea

        You are definitely making a wild assumption about the "finding another job". Being Finns (mostly) and having the work ethic that they do, most, if not all, promptly found other jobs and/or started businesses.

        It has even been said that Finland is better off because Nokia had vacuumed up the pool of talent for some years (Rovio took the rest I guess, apologies to Tata and Accenture).

        Now there are more and more smaller, dynamic Finnish outfits, allowing Finnish design (often cited as one of the best) to be evident in more areas.

        Not Finnish, but did work at Nokia and own Suunto, Salomon and Nokia stuff. Probably ought to buy Fiskar knives to round out the Finnish gear.

        Shame the Finlandia tellies are no more, I am sure they would be better than the Samsung so-called 'Smart' TV rubbish I am saddled with.

        1. MJI Silver badge

          Re: Don't think it's a good idea

          Finnish TVs

          My dad used to have a Salora, quite a good TV, only one better I knew of was my Trinitron.

      2. DJMoley

        Re: Don't think it's a good idea

        They should play on their xbox one or get a PS4. Its far cheaper to do that than bring out some lame new phone trying to steer others away. Its not even about coming up with something new. They failed once and got lost along the way. Now they are trying to do something new. Yeah right. No chance.

    3. MJI Silver badge

      Re: Don't think it's a good idea

      What do you expect a load of layed off phone executives and developers to do?

      Of course they will try a new phone with their knowleage and experience.

      Good luck to them.

      My new Android phone is a little annoying so I am watching with interest.

    4. Sir Sham Cad

      Re: Your design is the same as any other phone.

      Except it's not. The "other half" concept is the most innovative idea in smartphone design in a long, long time!

      Even if Jolla and Sailfish OS don't come near the unit sales of WinPho or BlackBerry they will still have that design (oh god I'm going to have to use one of *those* words) paradigm behind them and, worst case, they can flog/licence the IP on that.

      I want this to be a great phone and I would love to have one when they eventually release over here. More importantly I want these guys to succeed just to show what could they could have achieved if Nokia's management hadn't imploded.

      Summary: stop being such a bloody wet blanket.

      1. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad
        Thumb Up

        Re: Your design is the same as any other phone.

        "I want these guys to succeed just to show what they could have achieved"

        Agreed. They seem to have a passion (hey, lads in the back, stop giggling! No jokes about Finns today!) about their venture, so it seems that a good part of their motivation is to do things they could not have done before. An unfinished business, so to say. And that is a far better cause than just money.

        Godspeed.

        1. DJMoley

          Re: Your design is the same as any other phone.

          aint going to work. They are heading in the wrong direction.

    5. Vic

      Re: Don't think it's a good idea

      > You don't have any chance

      New user, one post, calls himself "Visionary"...

      Vic.

    6. Bad Beaver

      Re: Don't think it's a good idea

      So you really just created an account here to share your lack of VISION?

      1. DJMoley

        Re: Don't think it's a good idea

        Yeah I did . I just know that the smartphone market has been dominated now and ex nokia employees will not succeed

        1. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

          Re: Don't think it's a good idea

          "the smartphone market has been dominated now"

          Quite intriguing, if not ominous, choice of words. Is it really "dominated" - or "violated", "oppressed", "assimilated", "mutilated", "destroyed"?

          Well, whoever those dominators are, or whatever they think they have accomplished, they have my gracious permission to bugger off and take their "dominated" market with them. It is dead and starts to reek quite badly.

  11. Thomas 4

    Also hoping El Reg gets a review one...

    At that price and for those specs, I'm definitely intrigued. Especially if the get a keyboard backing for it...

  12. phil dude
    Linux

    other half and...

    As someone who has had an eye on this as owner of N900,N8 and N9...

    It has an SD slot, user replaceable battery, and custom other half. I spent a ton of time tagging all my music for the retarded N8 music player, so having it all on an SD card is *really* nice...

    The keyboard is likely to be one of the "other half"s... there was a nice laundry list of possible halfs vetted by the company engineers a few months back... The other half connection has power,i2c and NFC capabilities. So a spare battery is definitely on the cards.

    Apparently Sailfish OS will run on the N9 (for a risk free try).

    I could buy one via the UK, but I am waiting for it to make it to the US so support is not an issue...

    It may not be wanting to get between Android and Apple, but by being able to run Android apps and Linux software, it is definitely interesting...

    P.

  13. Hubert Thrunge Jr.

    Re: dont think it's a good idea

    Visionary - Steve, Steve Elop, hello, is that you?

    Ordered mine from the webshop a few days ago. Waiting patiently.

    As a previous N900 and then N9 owner, this is the logical progression.

    Currently using a BlackBerry Z10 which also has a gesture based interface and also runs android apps, Candy Crush works perfectly thank you. ;0)

    I'd still use my N9 now, but the battery is shot, and this Goosebury has enough life for a hard days work, plus it's removable.

    1. DJMoley

      Re: dont think it's a good idea

      Get with the times. You will be just a small minority and still playing on your ancient phone. If it works for you then good luck. You have to remember that if Nkia ex employees try to take on Apple or Samsung then might aswell give me the money instead.

  14. Jess

    N8 version would be nice.

    Since Nokia developed this system, I would think it likely that some of the dev would have been done on N8 type devices, so a version for N8 would be a sensible idea, because there are loads out there in second hand shops, and support is being dropped prematurely by Nokia.

    (It would be amusing if they also mad it available for iDevices that are dropped by iOS 7)

  15. DJMoley

    No Chance

    All you people that commented on my other post. you people need to wake up a bit.

    New technology is good but only if you know you can compete. No point in just coming up with the same phone with just a few different features.

    Apple, Microsoft have money to compete with the likes of Samsung. Jolla will just be dead in the water. Like I said they should quit now.

    No chance of survival.

    Buy the phone if you want but then don't complain when they stop making it only cos they will run out of money. They tried it with Symbian and hmm what a disaster. Apple then came along and probably had studied the market and blew everyone with their arrival of their phone..

    Anyway, no point in debating with any of you , cos you know i'm right.

    Have a nice xmas with your Jolla whack phones.

  16. Bela Lubkin
    Go

    good sign

    It has to be a good sign that this venture already has its own special dedicated RegTrollTard(tm).

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like