Jolla Phone – Yet Another Smartphone

Tired of Samsung, Apple, Nokia …. And all their overpriced gadgets without any real innovation? Want to use another OS than iOS or Android? Here is a Finnish start-up that’s walking in the footsteps of Nokia, which promises a revolution in the field of smartphones. Jolla is the first device from the company of the same name, and it’s running the MeeGo successor, Sailfish.

From Nokia to Jolla

Jolla was founded by veterans of Nokia, and that really shows in the look of the Jolla handset. Currently, the company has just over 70 employees. The flagship operating system of the brand is Sailfish, the successor of MeeGo developed at the time by Intel, Nokia, and Asus to counter Android. Nokia abandoned its development after allied with Microsoft in 2011.

Jolla Phone, technical specifications

The Jolla Phone includes a 4.5-inches capacitive touch screen, a Dual-core CPU (the clock speed has not been released), 16GB of internal memory for storage, expandable up to 64GB via the microSD slot. Multimedia side, an 8-megapixels camera (3264 x 2448 pixels, autofocus) with a LED flash, the 4G LTE support and a removable battery. Many sensors, accelerometer, proximity, compass. The plastic shell available in several colours, including orange and green. The device is also completely button-less.

What’s really unique about the Jolla phone is that when you change the back panel of the device, the whole theme of the phone changes to fit. So you can create multiple environments on your device depending on which back panel you have attached. It is also claimed that the device can run some Android apps, but only time will tell how accurate that statement actually is – but running Sailfish, which is based on MeeGo, which is in turn based on the Android SDK, then this isn’t out of the realms of possibility.

The launch of the Jolla phone is scheduled for the end of 2013, with a starting price of £340 (around $515).

Open Source FTW

Tomi Pienimäki CEO of Jolla, hammered at the presentation of his device that:

Closed systems and gardens enclosed by walls are not the modern way to build anything inspiring. Contrary to the co-creation , the opening and the cooperation. If you want to achieve something great and that makes sense, you have to empower people. This is not DIY (“do it yourself”) but DIT (‘do it together’).

We do not forget Ubuntu Phone OS and Firefox OS. The Jolla phone could well get out of the game on condition that Sailfish fills consumer expectations and brings something new and really different from what we already have in the market. SDKs are already available for developers.

What do you think about the Jolla phone? Is the market becoming too saturated with smartphones, or is variety the spice of life? Why not tell us your thoughts below.