Jolla Phone (October 2026)

214

mmrbn100ful about 5 hours ago 120 commentsRead Article on commerce.jolla.com

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Discussion Sentiment

67% Positive

Analyzed from 2805 words in the discussion.

Discussion (120 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

Tiberium•about 4 hours ago

Wanted to mention that Sailfish has a lot of closed-source components, especially UI-related, despite the overall marketing/"vibe" making it look very open. If anything, AOSP (Android) is more open than Sailfish. I don't think this has changed with Sailfish 5, see e.g.:

- https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/sailfish-os-clarifying-claims...

- https://docs.sailfishos.org/Develop/Open_Source/

Retr0id•about 4 hours ago

Huh. I really don't see the point of this, vs something like GrapheneOS.

Edit: I'm well aware of the differences between typical Linux and Android (especially the security architecture!), and I'm willing to make some sacrifices in the name of FOSS... but only if it's actually FOSS.

ttkari•about 4 hours ago

If what you want is android and you have privacy concerns, GrapheneOS is probably the best you can get.

Then again, SailfishOS is a linux with much of the usual linux stuff like userland with bash, coreutils, glibc, systemd, wayland, pulseaudio etc.

microtonal•about 3 hours ago

And way less security, sandboxing is far more limited and the default profile looks pretty much YOLO:

https://github.com/sailfishos/sailjail-permissions/blob/mast...

Given how sensitive information most people have on their phones (banking, chats, and whatnot), it's a disaster in the making.

The typical answer is "but I'll only use open source apps that I trust". Sandboxing doesn't only protect you against rogue apps, it primarily protects you against 0-days in apps that you do trust.

tormeh•41 minutes ago

If it has the "security" architecture of Linux (it's really more of a multi-tenant architecture) then that's a complete deal breaker. Wouldn't want it if it was 1000x faster/betterer than Android.

Our desktop OSes are just incompatible with running untrusted software, and you're gonna want to do that.

ux266478•about 4 hours ago

/etc configuration instead of the insanely bad system properties crap, glibc instead of bionic (which has even worse POSIX compliance than Windows), ld instead of linker, FHS, not having a batshit insane No-Sockets rule, not needing to port software that already compiles and runs on GNU/Linux, X11/Wayland/Arcan, system services aren't entangled with Java, normal IPC mechanisms instead whatever the fuck binder is. The list goes on.

Android (and by extension GrapheneOS) uses Linux as a kernel, but it lives in its own world and is completely unrecognizable. I'd say it's even more alien than macOS. For most users, the differences don't matter. If you're a programmer or a sysadmin with reasonable expectations, you feel like a fish out of water very fast. And I cannot honestly the changes are for the better.

drnick1•about 3 hours ago

> /etc configuration instead of the insanely bad system properties crap, glibc instead of bionic [...]

The practical downside, however, is that this phone does not natively run Android apps, while GrapheneOS runs all Android apps bar those that require Play Integrity. Desktop GNU/Linux programs are either unusable or a terrible experience on a mobile device with a small screen and no mouse.

IshKebab•about 3 hours ago

I think he was asking about advantages, not "how is it similar to a Unix system from the 80s?"

ThatMedicIsASpy•about 3 hours ago

My xperia 10 iii was 280€(+50€ OS) vs 500€++ for a pixel.

But I hate phones. All I want is navigation, sms/call, signal, steam and firefox.

microtonal•about 3 hours ago

Ehm, a Pixel 9a is currently 349 Euro here (10a 399 Euro). Given that the OS is free, that's only a 19 Euro difference. For a much better camera, much better SoC, much better pretty much everything.

Of course, if your goal is to run SailfishOS, there is currently not much of another option.

fsfasfd•about 3 hours ago

You might be interested in the callback:

https://commodore.net/callback/

It's pretty cool looking! Very optimistic about it.

drnick1•about 3 hours ago

The Pixel 10a is on sale for $399 on Amazon right now, and it's a far better device, and it can run GrapheneOS.

dengolius•about 4 hours ago

I read somewhere that the owners have ties to russia, but the most important thing is that they’re marketing very aggressively through posts that slander GraphenOS.

ttkari•about 4 hours ago

> they’re marketing very aggressively through posts that slander GraphenOS

I would really appreciate it if you could give some references - any at all - to back this claim.

All I have seen is GrapheneOS folks (or probably just a certain individual affiliated with the GrapheneOS org) accusing them of doing this.

ndiddy•about 3 hours ago

IIRC the company tried to become a major mobile operating system in the BRICS countries, which led to Rostelecom, the Russian state telecom operator, purchasing a majority state in the company in the mid-2010s. After Russia invaded Ukraine, the company's management started a new company and moved all their employees and IP over to it to escape the Russian ownership.

VortexLain•about 2 hours ago

Russian Aurora OS was an official Sailfish OS offspring, focused on MDM devices, but Sailfish cut ties with Aurora in 2022, after the Russia-Ukraine war has emerged. It's now developed independently of Sailfish, although they share the same code since the codebase was unified before the split.

dijit•about 4 hours ago

Jesus christ, what is this FUD?

I know the people behind SailfishOS, they’re not like, friends or anything: just ex-Nokia developers who got fucked by Microsoft (like I did, btw, which is how I know of them).

I feel like the big tech smartphone duopoly would have a reason to spread such rubbish, but its so patently obvious that I doubt they are so stupid.

g-b-r•about 3 hours ago

You mean that GrapheneOS has ties to Russia? https://ised-isde.canada.ca/cc/lgcy/fdrlCrpDtls.html?p=0&cor...

(I actually couldn't find information on their nationality, they might be e.g. Ukrainian or second-generation Russian immigrants; Micay is somewhat Russian-sounding too, btw, although I think he's known to have been born in Canada).

mrbn100ful•about 4 hours ago

They are (slowly) releasing more and more components

https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/open-sourcing-proceeding/2468...

https://github.com/sailfishos/sailfish-weather/

https://github.com/sailfishos/jolla-camera

It's still more open than AOSP

bri3d•about 3 hours ago

> It's still more open than AOSP

I don't think this is true at all? AOSP is completely open source modulo driver blobs (which Sailfish has too) and Google services.

One can make a fully functional system, modulo drivers, out of only open-source components using AOSP. It's not possible to do this using Sailfish; the compositor, UI libraries (Silica), and most of the "core" apps are still closed source.

mrbn100ful•about 3 hours ago

The compositor is open (Lipstick) : https://github.com/sailfishos/lipstick

And OSS projet based on the SFOS core exist : https://nemomobile.net/, https://github.com/nemomobile-ux

dadoum•about 3 hours ago

If I remember correctly a lot of AOSP core apps have been discontinued though.

singpolyma3•about 3 hours ago

I think you mean less. Since AOSP is fully open?

fsflover•about 1 hour ago

If the openness is important to you, you may want to have a look at other GNU/Linux phones, Librem 5 and Pinephone. The former runs an FSF-endorsed Debian derivative.

CiTyBear•about 4 hours ago

Personal experience with Jolla: I bought their first mobile (still have it somewhere) that would be a "Linux Phone that run android app". Wanted to support it and was ready to expect some bugs but it did not work all. No support at all, most of android app did not work. The OS was not finished that it was already obsolete. And now there are doing it again like the first one never existed. I have zero trust in this company

poetaster•about 3 hours ago

I still have my first Jolla from 2016. Still works and got updates till 2 years ago. The android stuff I used was minimal but worked fine except for bluetooth and nfc. I build my own mostly.

derdi•about 2 hours ago

I still have my first Jolla from 2014, I used it until... 2022-ish? My main gripe was that RAM was limited, the OOM killer killed my browser way too often while I was actively using it. I didn't use too much Android stuff, but as far as I remember it mostly worked. I'd expect this new one to work just fine.

The thing that sounds really fishy is the "User configurable physical Privacy Switch". If you can configure it in software (how else?), then it's software-defined. If it's software-defined, then it's not physical.

aivisol•about 2 hours ago

I was about to write the same. I even had a chance to meet their then CTO at their booth in WMC in Barcelona and complain in person but well …

alcasa•about 3 hours ago

I used it as a daily driver back in 2014/15 and it worked ok from what I remember.

_zoltan_•18 minutes ago

I gave them money once on Kickstarter. Never got anything and they held my money hostage for years.

I'm never ever, ever buying anything from Jolla. They can go out of business for all I care.

boesboes•about 4 hours ago

Careful with preordering, they seem to ignore requests to cancel & the community is rather hostile to any form of criticism

zuzululu•about 3 hours ago

thanks for this. as soon as I realized it was a European company I already had some doubts going in. Won't be ordering.

mihular•about 3 hours ago

Wait, what? What is wrong with European companies by default?

carlosjobim•about 1 hour ago

European companies sometimes take your money and do not deliver the product if you're a foreigner. It happened to me. I have never experienced an American or Chinese company doing the same.

ktosobcy•about 3 hours ago

They don't harvest all personal data becase they don't give a duck like the Usanian counterparts /s

woah•about 3 hours ago

Seems like a lot of European tech companies are kept afloat by "digital sovereignty" and maybe EU grant money, while having products that are far behind US and Chinese competitors. Mistral, W Social, maybe this one. Unfortunately it seems to be starting to backfire to where all EU companies, even legitimate ones, are being tarred with this brush.

utopiah•about 3 hours ago

Went from iPhone (with PostMarketOS on PinePhones as tests) to /e/OS on a CMF Nothing installed by Murena to GrapheneOS on 2nd hand Pixel 8.

I'm not advocating any of those specifically but I do recommend you take whatever step you are comfortable with to a saner mobile technology lifestyle.

IMHO it's a worthwhile learning journey that is probably less challenging and more empowering than you can imagine.

microtonal•about 3 hours ago

For those who do not have the funds for anything else, its worth looking into uad-ng:

https://github.com/Universal-Debloater-Alliance/universal-an...

E.g. on most Samsung phones you can uninstall (from the user partition): third-party Meta/Microsoft/etc. apps, the McAfee app scanner that not enabled by default, Gemini, Bixbee, most Google apps, most Samsung apps, some analytics services. You can make a pretty vanilla phone with just OneUI.

That said, best is to grab a Pixel, the only phone with an unlockable bootloader that also has modern device security (separate security processor, MTE, etc.). Installing GrapheneOS gives you a very pristine and quiet OS, while still providing great compatibility through sandboxed Google Play Services.

Also the only OS that provides Android 17 now, besides Pixel OS (and obviously betas like the OneUI 9 beta).

system2•10 minutes ago

I wonder if humanity will ever go back to Nokia times small phones. If this phone was 50% smaller, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. I don't want to carry these huge bricks anymore.

RomanPushkin•about 3 hours ago

750 USD? I like the idea. And appreciate all the people who support such products, so phones are getting cheaper. But no way I'm getting it for over $150. It looks really cheap, and the marketing is bad, honestly. I think these corporations have spoiled me, and I was really looking for huuuuge wow effect for $750, but it's just a Linux phone.

qurren•about 2 hours ago

> European alternative

What about the regulatory side where all of Europe is starting to require stock Android or iOS to even have an ID card?

cassianoleal•about 4 hours ago

Have they unlocked the bootloader? Can I install a different OS on it?

ktosobcy•about 3 hours ago

I got first Jolla Phone ages ago, wanted to love it but in the end I disliked it bebause of gesture-oriented UI (it simply didn't 'click' for me and was annoying to use in the long run).

Right now I'm more excited about PostmarketOS which seems to be more vanilla Linux with more approachable UI…

seviu•about 2 hours ago

I ordered two in the September batch, which was way less expensive.

Jolla phones are fine. I have friends who use it every day. Happy to support them all the best I can.

—— Sent from my iPhone 17 Pro

bilekas•about 4 hours ago

I like the idea of these new phones that might be a bit more privacy centered, and even with some different OSes but I think the biggest problem for a lot of adoption is the compatibility with things like banking apps, 2fa etc. It makes it quite an impossible daily driver thanks to some strange rules.

poetaster•about 3 hours ago

2FA is not an issue. Many, but not all banking apps work fine. I have an android phone for 3 apps which I need about once a month. Daily driving a linux phone since 2016.

Uncle_Brumpus•about 3 hours ago

I get all my 2FA through SMS or a Yubikey. It took a bit of wrangling from corporate IT, but it was "Get my yubikey or SMS working or buy me a company phone and pay for service that I won't use for anything else"

I never really did a lot of banking on my phone before, but it really wasn't that hard to let that go. I'd say the biggest hangup is not having Venmo or something for splitting bills with friends, yard-sales, etc, but I've started carrying some amount of cash again for those instances and it's worked out alright.

Been daily driving a dumbphone since 2023. Yes it takes a bit of work, but it's so SO worth it.

axelthegerman•about 4 hours ago

Unfortunately for the foreseeable future you'd need a cheap Android or iOS device for those apps and whatever you want as daily driver.

I don't think you NEED to open your online banking on your phone every day. Just use cash and cards.

2FA should be easily available on any OS

microtonal•about 3 hours ago

I don't think you NEED to open your online banking on your phone every day. Just use cash and cards.

That's an overgeneralization. In many countries online payments require approval through a smartphone. There are also banks that barely have a mobile banking website (e.g. Bunq last time I had it).

bilekas•about 3 hours ago

Yup. Which I like, but not the lock in. Anything over 100€ I have set to manually approve by the app. Also if I need to quickly transfer some cash to my current account, who I do regularly enough, I'm a bit out of luck.

I've not heard of a bank in the last while that doesn't have the restrictions, at least in Ireland and Italy.

pimterry•about 4 hours ago

There's a compatibility list at https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa....

I think the challenges here exist but the reality is overblown to be honest, the vast majority of banking apps (everything that isn't struck through in that list) work just fine.

Fully agree the concern is discouraging adoption though. I would love to see more of a solution here, it seems like purely anti-competitive behaviour by Android that will block competitors emerging.

erikvanoosten•about 4 hours ago

Perhaps my bank is special (Triodos), its app works just fine on the Jolla.

butz•about 2 hours ago

Who designed such ridiculous camera bump? It would be a really nice device, if only it had a flat backside.

reaperducer•6 minutes ago

Who designed such ridiculous camera bump?

People who remember when phones had "flat backsides" and were constantly getting scratched and abraded by regular use just putting them on tables and picking them up again.

The tripod posture is a feature, not a bug.

I still occasionally use my iPhone 4 as a music player, and the flat back not only makes it susceptible to scratching, it makes it hard to pick up off of smooth surfaces like my coffee table. With a bump, you have something to grip.

xandrius•about 4 hours ago

I hope Ubuntu Touch has native support for this, as it's a great OS with massive potential and active community.

tombert•about 2 hours ago

I really wanted the official Ubuntu phone to catch on. I gave to the IndieGoGo for it but sadly it wasn't funded, so I installed Ubuntu mobile on a different old phone (a OnePlus One I think?) like a decade ago.

I thought it was very cool. It felt a lot more like a "computer that I could use as a smartphone" than a "smartphone with some computer stuff". I thought the interface was clean and nice and it was fun to hack on.

I really should buy a compatible phone and play with it again...I'm sure they've done a lot of work on it.

itomato•about 4 hours ago

If this Sailfish phone is 700 and Commodore's is 500, I know which Sailfish device I can pay attention to.

wasting_time•about 3 hours ago

What do you mean?

mrbluecoat•about 3 hours ago

Ship to the US with GrapheneOS and I'll be first in line :)

microtonal•about 1 hour ago

The Mediatek Dimensity 7100 in this phone does not support MTE and the phone is unlikely to have a secure enclave. So does not meet the GrapheneOS requirements by a long stretch.

dengolius•about 4 hours ago

Does anyone know when they'll sell their company and product to russia again?

badgersnake•about 3 hours ago

They will sell in Russia when it’s legal to do so, just like every other company.

zuzululu•about 3 hours ago

Are you talking about European companies? There are already many companies in Russia doing extremely well like Korean and Japanese companies

badgersnake•about 3 hours ago

European or American.

Currently Russia is sanctioned so it’s illegal to do business there. If it were legal they would be straight back.

Ylpertnodi•about 4 hours ago

After they make Zelensky pres.

imzadi•about 4 hours ago

I hope it eats you if you don't wear your Christmas clothes

WarmWash•about 4 hours ago

What does "Assembled in Finland" mean?

embedding-shape•about 4 hours ago

Stuff gets put together in Finland to form the final device they ship, even if the parts aren't made in Finland. I think a dictionary lookup for "assemble" might help if this explanation did not.

dghlsakjg•about 4 hours ago

Well, assembly can mean that a pick and place machine is assembling individual capacitors onto a raw circuit board, or it can mean a teenager putting the battery in and putting the battery cover on before packaging it. That’s why “look it up in a dictionary” comments aren’t helpful. We aren’t confused about the word, we are confused what it means in this use because it can have a VERY broad definition.

Pick and place PCB assembly is very different from the final assembly of batteries in terms of who is capturing value and building a reasonable moat. Their sales angle is around European autonomy.

Low wage workers putting batteries in phones is not that, but PCB assembly is much closer to that.

numpad0•about 4 hours ago

I don't know anything but I thought it's the opposite of that? I thought pick-and-place machines are like fancier 3D printers, and they can be bought and copied anywhere sufficiently advanced, but low-wage assembly workers are organic AGIs that require multi year culture building and prompt engineering know-hows accumulation to be able to achieve and maintain even usable yield rates and cannot be spun up overnight, especially after a workplace was once torn down.

Or am I just spoiled by apparent local regional abundance of cheap roboticists?

SoftTalker•about 4 hours ago

Seems much more likely to me that the main board of the phone is assembled in China and the battery and the case, and perhaps the screen are added in Finland. But it would be nice to know for sure.

nticompass•about 4 hours ago

I read it as "how much is actually assembled in Finland versus arriving pre-assembled?"

ttkari•about 4 hours ago

Probably things like fixing the mainboards to the casing, putting in batteries, back covers, flashing the software, running hw tests, packaging etc.

john_strinlai•about 4 hours ago

the pieces of the phone are put together in the country of finland

nticompass•about 4 hours ago

Yes, but which pieces are put together there and which are already assembled elsewhere?

scoot•about 4 hours ago

Exactly this (when nitpicking the phrasing). Is putting the finished unit in the box "assembly" of the delivered product?

OTOH, I'm not sure how much it matters. Apple products are "designed in California" (which is a bit of a lie to begin with), and very much assembled overseas.

Of more interest is how few units they've pre-sold compared to mainstream phones. I wish them well, but I doubt they'll change history.

tchalla•about 4 hours ago

What does their website say?

gitowiec•about 3 hours ago

Why so expensive :(

AndrewKemendo•about 2 hours ago

Is there anybody out there making a thin client device that runs almost everything remotely?

Basically a screen, battery and LTE chip with microSD storage for times

The way most people use phones are functionally useless without internet, so thats already a critical requirement and having the “phone” part of it you can do with 5c of hardware and free software.

Artoooooor•about 4 hours ago

Another almost good phone without a mini jack :( User-replaceable battery, SD card port, mini jack, touchscreen that works consistently. Do I really ask for that much?

poetaster•about 3 hours ago

I'm also a bit dissapointed by that, but the community sponsored me a phone and I've been testing usb dongles. They're actually surprisingly good for no money. I think if I was a daily phones user I would probably be using bt.

fsflover•about 2 hours ago

Did you consider Librem 5 or Pinephone?

sourcegrift•about 4 hours ago

Google is so anti open it's the new Microsoft. I hope for a day when my phone runs nixos with Qt apps. Qt is so much better than java that I'm sure I'll be able to make do in 4gb what android takes 16gb for.

In the era of hallucinated apps, this doesn't even seen like an imaginary wishful scenario.

drnick1•about 3 hours ago

> Google is so anti open it's the new Microsoft.

You can unlock a Pixel's bootloader and install GrapheneOS. It would be highly ironic if the Jolla's was locked.

xigoi•about 2 hours ago

GrapheneOS seems to focus on privacy and security, not freedom.

Marciplan•about 4 hours ago

why this over Fairphone?

poetaster•about 4 hours ago

Mal, from Jolla has ports to from the 2 till the 5, I believe. I used an FP2 for about a year. Big difference is andoid app support, not present on the fp ohones.

Marciplan•about 1 hour ago

fair enough!

nicman23•about 4 hours ago

> 99€ down payment to lock your October delivery

...

spaqin•about 4 hours ago

I still can't take a device with a mid-range Mediatek seriously. Probably from my XDA days, where just its presence meant locked bootloaders and no kernel sources.

Congrats on selling them but "assembled in EU" can't be the main selling point.

samtp•about 2 hours ago

Their branding & website looks like a generic fake shop that was created in 30 mins for testing or scamming