Hey, I thought some of you might be interested in this new phone from Jolla given their alternative approach to the mobile phone industry.
Jolla has been making headlines with their pre-order campaign with over 13k units ordered, which will soon enter production once they’ve collected the final payments. I must admit, this isn’t quite as ground-breaking as Fairphone’s repairable smartphones, but more a continuation of what smarphones used to offer, i. e. replacable batteries, but it’s not all they’ve have to offer.
They’re also bringing back The Other Half program, which means the phone will be expandable with custom back covers that enable the development of keyboards, extra screens, battery expansion, etc. The pogo pins on the back side expose the I2C interface for data, power in as well as out, the specs of which both software and hardware-wise will all be open sourced. And speaking of software…
The phone will also come with the company’s own full-blown Linux operating system, Sailfish OS that has managed to survive against all odds in the heavily competitive mobile OS space. Breaking through as a true third contender has not quite been realised, but thanks to their Android App support layer they’re not hamstrung by lack of apps.
I’ve personally been very big fan of what Jolla has been building, but as a long time user of their products, I have lived through the hype phase too. I think they do still have a long way to go before they could compete with the likes of Apple and Google, but given how they’ve still managed to stay afloat where many other companies have failed is an impressive feat. Having been able to run their OS as a daily driver has certainly kept me believing in their mission too. For a nerd power user like myself, it is an ideal platform, as I can bend the OS to do anything I’d expect from a Linux device. Is it free of bugs? Surely not, but their fifth major release is a lot more stable and feature rich than what it was in the first.
What do you think? Will you be getting one or are you not convinced? Curious to hear what the Framework community folks here think regardless!
That is definitely a downside, yes. I’ve gotten used to devices with only USB-C now and have been using dongles for headphone jack but they keep breaking or I end up losing them. At the very least it may be possible to have a headphone jack back cover through the I2C pogo pin interface but there’s no guarantee such will become available nor how they’d end up looking like. Of the smartphone trends I don’t like, the removal of headphone jacks but I see it a lesser evil than the non-replaceable battery.
The problem is not just the jack itself, it’s the attitude and amount of effort reflected. There’s nothing on top of the phone, they aren’t even trying. It’s not like that it’s technically impossible to do so or something.
I tried using a 2 in 1 dongle, for headphone and charging at the same time. However it interferes with charging and only 5V is available
I understand why it may seem baffling, but saying that they didn’t try is not really giving them enough credit for all the effort they’ve put in. Before they even set out to make the phone, they asked the community what are the priorities for the specs. Based on the votes, they worked hard to create a phone with the specs that the majority wanted. You can read about the results of said polls here. For them to even give the users a chance to vote is unusual as it is, no?
Besides, adding a headphone jack means that extra space has to come somewhere too, which could increase the size of the already rather big sized phone or at the cost of a smaller battery etc. The space underneath the top side is packed with other important components. The headphone jack might have fit in if the community had decided to go for 7" (only 12% in the poll).
It all boils down to priorities and I understand headphone jack may be a big one for you. I won’t downplay that. I do genuinely wish they’d included the headphone jack, but alas if this is what most people want, then what can you do? I don’t know much of what it takes to manufacture a phone, but it certainly can’t be easy.
I’m in the same boat as you there, I suspect I’ll be sitting on my pixel5a for a while still. On the other hand it does everything I need so that is fine but it would be nice to have options.
Unfortunately the app situation is just so bad with SailfishOS. There are not really good native apps so you have to fallback to android apps and at which point you would be better getting a Pixel and installing GrapheneOS which is much more secure than Sailfish.
also their native web browser is based on some historical firefox esr version and then you are once again falling back to using some android app for web browsing.
As a Finn its nice that Jolla is still trying but the current situation is just not something that can be competitive.