Jolla Phone (October 2026)

301

mmrbn100ful 1 day ago 183 commentsRead Article on commerce.jolla.com

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⚡ Community Insights

Discussion Sentiment

70% Positive

Analyzed from 3365 words in the discussion.

Discussion (183 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

Tiberium•1 day 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•1 day 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.

port11•about 10 hours ago

Maybe the point is to have more than 2 players in the mobile OS arena, especially if the American duopoly continues to force everyone’s hand.

ttkari•1 day 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•1 day 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.

ux266478•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day ago

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

ThatMedicIsASpy•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day ago

You might be interested in the callback:

https://commodore.net/callback/

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

drnick1•1 day 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.

tormeh•1 day 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.

fsflover•about 7 hours ago

> Our desktop OSes are just incompatible with running untrusted software

You should have a look at https://qubes-os.org

ginko•about 23 hours ago

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

So you're saying people should only use walled garden closed source OSes? Sounds like tyranny to me.

dengolius•1 day 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.

lproven•about 3 hours ago

> posts that slander GraphenOS.

FWIW, as someone who is not in the phone OS development world at all but has been reviewing phones with alternative OSes for about the last 4 years...

My impression is that everyone else in the phone-OS and deGoogled-Android world hates the GrapheneOS folks, and it's mutual. They seem to be borderline impossible to work with, very arrogant and protectionist, and the project's own support lifetime is "when Google no longer supports your phone, we don't either."

Personally, I'd choose something else. Anything else, in fact.

ttkari•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day ago

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

Andromxda•about 9 hours ago

> It's still more open than AOSP

Uh, no? How are you getting this idea?

This is the manifest file for GrapheneOS: https://github.com/GrapheneOS/platform_manifest/blob/17/defa...

It literally contains links to all the AOSP repos or GrapheneOS forks of them. You can clone these exact repos and build the OS from source. GrapheneOS provides instructions for it: https://grapheneos.org/build

singpolyma3•1 day ago

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

fsflover•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day 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.

port11•about 10 hours ago

I don’t think they have the trust and platform stability to back up that price tag. But it’s always good to have more competition, so let’s see.

alcasa•1 day ago

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

aivisol•1 day 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 …

utopiah•1 day 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•1 day 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).

boesboes•1 day ago

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

RomanPushkin•1 day 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.

fsflover•1 day ago

> But no way I'm getting it for over $150.

So Pinephone seems to be what you're searching for.

porphyra•about 24 hours ago

The Pinephone comes with ridiculously weak compute. The Jolla Phone has a Mediatek Dimensity 7100 comparable to $300 phones like the Honor 600 Lite [1]. Of course, with the $750 price tag you're getting an unlocked bootloader/Linux support and the labor of Finnish people.

[1] https://www.gsmarena.com/honor_600_lite_debuts_with_dimensit...

fsflover•about 14 hours ago

The parent gave the price tag, and I replied with the corresponding device. With good software, Pinephone can smoothly play videos, show map directions and browse the web with NoScript, https://sxmo.org/

Cider9986•1 day ago

Funnily enough, the privacy subreddit has banned all mentions of alternative phone operating systems.

blu3h4t•1 day ago

I bought and used sailfish on a Sony phone (also had a second one), with my work issued SIM card for mainly calling as a test, it also had a few popular messaging apps like WhatsApp and whatnot, maybe for 5 years, but got tired of the interface and apps mediocrity. On a personal phone after several years and several mediocre android phones that had to be switched way too often for my tastes I switched to an iPhone. And as I expected cause had a Mac 20 years ago, despite using Linux for all these years, God what a pleasure to use an iPhone. But anyway got tired of that sailfish phone and replaced it with an older pixel + graphene, not as huge as iPhone but still much better than the sailfish os, in both app support and interface. If you ask me this are the only tho decent phones now an iPhone or graphene. That Sony is running murena now I think cause it’s on the table getting an update once in a while.

qurren•1 day 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•1 day ago

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

taffydavid•about 21 hours ago

Still sort of blows my mind that people regularly pay 600+ for new phones, and that's not even considered expensive.

I've only ever bought refurbished or budget ones

seviu•1 day 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

mistyvales•1 day ago

I'm getting Nokia N9 MeeGo vibes from this. Also reminded me of the tablet debacle which I suppose is ancient history at this point..

mempko•about 24 hours ago

There is a reason Jolla is ex Nokia people who made MeeGo. Sailfish (the OS) is a direct distended.

bit_economist•about 20 hours ago

No headphone jack? They show a photo of wired earbuds on the product page.

ktosobcy•1 day 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…

xandrius•1 day ago

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

tombert•1 day 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.

xandrius•about 12 hours ago

Yeah, I did the same. Now you can even run android apk's on the system, which makes it easier to switch.

bilekas•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day ago

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

_zoltan_•1 day 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.

samat•about 23 hours ago

Built in multi user capability is so enticing

butz•1 day ago

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

reaperducer•1 day 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.

itomato•1 day ago

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

wasting_time•1 day ago

What do you mean?

dengolius•1 day ago

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

badgersnake•1 day ago

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

zuzululu•1 day ago

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

badgersnake•1 day 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•1 day ago

After they make Zelensky pres.

mrbluecoat•1 day ago

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

microtonal•1 day 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.

WarmWash•1 day ago

What does "Assembled in Finland" mean?

embedding-shape•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day ago

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

ttkari•1 day 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•1 day ago

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

nticompass•1 day ago

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

scoot•1 day 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•1 day ago

What does their website say?

samtp•1 day ago

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

system2•1 day 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.

wuming2•about 7 hours ago

Since NASA demonstrates it is possible to keep servicing software on a 50 years old hardware, traveling into space far far away, I want someone to buy software and original tooling rights for the Nokia 1100. Then prepare a firmware upgrade for the variant with WAP capabilities to replace them with a more modern, very optimized, stack and have it installed on the (millions of) remaining devices. Then deal with carriers convincing them to provide ad-hoc 2G CSD service. Finally setting up internet services for the puny device. One can always dream.

Cider9986•1 day ago

Most people like big phones and they sell the best. With more people who only have phones as their devices, they want to have as much screen as possible.

The solution that I would implement ifI wanted a small phone would be a Motorola flip.

Artoooooor•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day ago

Did you consider Librem 5 or Pinephone?

sourcegrift•1 day 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•1 day 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•1 day ago

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

Andromxda•about 9 hours ago

This makes no sense. GrapheneOS is open source, while SailfishOS isn't. On top of that, GrapheneOS is much more secure.

gitowiec•1 day ago

Why so expensive :(

mrbn100ful•1 day ago

They also have the Jolla c2 for 360€

imzadi•1 day ago

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

erzo152817•about 11 hours ago

Moto g 05

shmerl•1 day ago

Does it work with US networks?

cyanydeez•1 day ago

does this have some weird ad tech? It turns white screen on me.

AndrewKemendo•1 day 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.

Marciplan•1 day ago

why this over Fairphone?

poetaster•1 day 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•1 day ago

fair enough!

nicman23•1 day ago

> 99€ down payment to lock your October delivery

...

spaqin•1 day 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.