back to article Three floats Jolla in Hong Kong: Says Sailfish is '3rd option'

Dented Linux mobile OS Sailfish has taken a new route to market as Three in Hong Kong prepares to start selling the smartphone-that-could-have-been from Jolla. The Linux-based OS has had a tortuous history. The open source OS, based on the MeeGo operating system, was first developed, and then dropped, by Nokia. Since then it …

  1. James 51

    That's about £50 cheaper than from their website and the price has come down since I was last on their site. I hope they bring this to the UK.

    1. trigpoint

      They sell it anywhere in the EU, if you want one, order it.

      Mine took about 3 days to arrive. A great phone.

  2. PerlyKing
    Joke

    Unfortunate phrasing

    "We are thrilled to [...] bring the Jolla smartphone [...] to 3 Hong Kong customers"

    Surely they're hoping to sell more than that ;-)

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Want, want, want, want.

    I love a phone from people who both know what they're doing and who are not tied to any data grabbing entity.

    As it's EU available, I think I'm going to break out a credit card..

  4. Bad Beaver
    Thumb Up

    Good!

    Keep that little boat afloat :)

    At €349 now, I might soon treat myself to that just for the fun of it. Damn Nokia N9 just refuses to get old. Yay for technolust.

  5. Piloti

    I have a Jolla.

    It is superb. Sailfish is what a mobile OS should be. By comparison Android is a dog, IOS is a toilet brush.

    Buy a Jolla.

    That's my recomendation.

    That's all.

  6. grantmasterflash

    I have a Jolla.. in the US. I had to go the long way to get it here and it's only 2G because US LTE networks are not the right band but I still like the phone and OS. I'd like to see more native apps and I'd like to see more robust hardware similar to what Nokia used to make. That's my wishlist.

  7. Waspy

    Good luck to 'em but...

    Probably get downvoted here but I'm not entirely convinced about Jolla. I actually had one since release late last year and really bought into the concept (i loved my n9 before, wanted something like that with a future along with an OS that didn't have a large Us corporation hoovering up everything I produced)

    However, after three months I had to get rid. There were things about it I really liked - proper multitasking for one, but other things about it reminded me that it was a profoundly beta product and some ideas just didn't work that well. It definitely isn't the new N9 in my opinion.

    Added to that is think Jolla customer service seems strangely quite arrogant for such a small firm (after several hardware and software issues and emails to their support desk, i had to wait a few days simply to get longwinded lists of what I could do to fix it...i appreciate I was an early adopter but I'm a customer, not a beta tester, just offer to take it in...), i think they have a lot more work to do.

    Good luck to them though, it is nice to see a small firm challenging the other bigger players.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Good luck to 'em but...

      I agree. I was one of the first with a Jolla. Shows great promise but somehow just doesn't come close to the user experience of my N9 - which is back as my daily mobe. It's a shame Nokia didn't allow them to take 'Swipe' with them. It would have made the Jolla a serious competitor - hence why it wasn't allowed perhaps.

      I'll stick with the N9 for now and watch what upgrades they bring to the OS and maybe give it another try when it's properly out of beta or RC.

      1. captain veg Silver badge

        Re: Good luck to 'em but...

        Same again. Ordered a Jolla. got the T-shirt, don't use the phone, sticking with my N9 for now. For me the killer is the lack of integrated SIP client. Mind you, once they sort that out, the easily replaceable battery and microSD slot do sort out a couple of the biggest gripes I have with the last true Nokia smartphone.

        -A.

        1. John Hughes

          Re: Good luck to 'em but...

          Mind you, once they sort that out, the easily replaceable battery and microSD slot do sort out a couple of the biggest gripes I have with the last true Nokia smartphone.

          Beware -- the battery is replaceable, it's also unobtainable.

    2. ilmari

      Re: Good luck to 'em but...

      Yep, you can see the nerd mentality. The first reply is usually 'did yiu try ssh into it via usb networking', second is 'send it in'. round-trip of 4 days including time spent in mail, that was impressive.

  8. RyokuMas

    Not 3...

    Sounds good, but wouldn't touch one that uses 3 as a carrier...

  9. banalyzer

    Maturity is beginning to appear

    I bought mine when it was €399, it's nice that the quantity they have sold has enabled them to drop the price by €50. The OS was at version 1.03 and has been regularly updated and is now at 1.08.

    When I first got it, there where known issues with MMS and 4G, these have now been dealt with.

    I have had no issues with call quality, it reminds me of my old nokia 3310 in that it still operates well with only one bar of signal.

    The camera is not the best on a phone but is more than adequate, with the option of standard form or 16:9 photographs.

    Sailfish is still under development and keeps improving. It is already very fluid and smooth in operation. The Dalvik virtual machine is really very good and is capable of running the google play store if you want to do that. The Yandex store that is used if you install the DVM ( I don't know if that is automatic now ) is a little deficient in terms of volume of apps, as is the native warehouse but both are slowly improving.

    I do recommend putting it in developer mode, it will download a bash terminal which then gives you access to the system as a whole and root as well. It also opens up a lot of applications that are command line from the warehouse.

    This is not a smart phone, this is a mobile GNU/Linux system with a very good communication system that happens to do good voice as well.

    As long as they don't stuff it full of provider carp it should do ok.

    Good luck Jolla, it's a good system, it deserves to succeed.

    1. James 51

      Re: Maturity is beginning to appear

      You make it sound a lot like the n900. *wipes tear from eye* That was a great phone/linux portable.

      1. captain veg Silver badge

        Re: Maturity is beginning to appear

        Because it had a physical keyboard, yes? Sometimes I still miss my old Treo.

        -A.

        1. Graham Cobb Silver badge

          Re: Maturity is beginning to appear

          I have a Jolla with a physical keyboard Other Half, which I use as my daily phone. A bit bulky but nice to have.

          Unfortunately the keyboard was a limited run project by a community developer and hasn't been taken up by Jolla.

        2. Down not across

          Re: Maturity is beginning to appear

          Because it had a physical keyboard, yes? Sometimes I still miss my old Treo.

          Just make a modern equivalent of Nokia Communicator 9xxx dammit!

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