The Finnish company Jolla, founded by Nokia’s ex-employees, released its first handset named after its makers – the Jolla. The device took two years to make and it was finally launched in November 2013. It runs on a whole new operating system, Sailfish OS, and greatly differs from other phones on the market.
The Jolla phone runs on the open-source Sailfish OS.
The Jolla phone has a distinctive, “two-half” design – it kind of looks like two phones pressed together. The first “half” (the front) is made out of aluminum and the other (the back) out of plastic. The replaceable back cover is actually called “the Other Half” and is equipped with an NFC chip that allows you to change phone profiles whenever you change your back cover. The whole phone looks fairly plain, but the minimalistic design is actually quite appealing and you can get the phone in various, vibrant colours, which is always fun. The edges of the Jolla are sharp, so it’s not as easy to hold as some other smartphones, but that is not a major drawback.
The Jolla comes with an alternative look.
The Jolla sports a 4.5in IPS LCD display (putting it into a category of mid-sized phones) with a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels (density 245ppi), which is slightly disappointing, seeing that most phones nowadays have at least a 720p resolution. Still, there is time for improvement, given that this is Jolla’s first smartphone.
Like we’ve already mentioned, the Jolla runs on the Sailfish OS, which is based on the MeeGo software that used to be Nokia’s choice of operating system (found in, for example, the Nokia N9), before they decided on Microsoft’s Windows. It supports most of the Android apps and Jolla’s own store currently has about 70 apps.
The back cover of the Jolla is replaceable and comes in a number of colours.
Inside is a 1.4GHz dual-core processor (Qualcomm Snapdragon 400) backed by 1GB of RAM. There’s 16GB of internal storage and you can add up to 64GB to it thanks to a microSD slot. According to Jolla, the 2,100mAh battery will give you nine hours of 3G talk time and on the back you have a decent 8-megapixel camera with a LED flash. In terms of connectivity, the Jolla has Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi b/g/n and NFC.
It may not be that great on the inside and the display could definitely use some work, but the Jolla is a device with a new, open OS and an innovative design that will surely make both the phone and its company noticed.
