Today was the big day for Jolla – they officially launched their first phone today, and a few hundred lucky preorder customers were invited to come pick up their new device at an event organised by Jolla and Finnish carrier DNA. Starting today, the rest of the preorder will also be shipped to customers (mine will be here soon too!). Now that the device is on the market, there’s the user guide, which provides insight into how the software and hardware works.
The first unboxing video has also made its way to YouTube. Of course, the moment my limited edition Jolla gets here, I’ll give you my first impressions.
Jolla are at least doing something right. nice hardware coupled with a true open-source-friendly OS with Android compatibility. What’s not to love? Shame Nokia killed themselves by sucking up to MS, and not supporting a platform they spent so much money developing…
I wanted to buy a cell phone for Xmas, but I prefer to wait some months until Jolla phones will be available for non-european masses
Me too. If the phone turns out to be reasonably decent, I’d probably buy one.
Waiting too. Nice device even when I would prefer a larger 6-7′ screen.
Edited 2013-11-28 20:17 UTC
I’d love to get my hands on one; I’d drop my current phone in a heartbeat.
I think the Jolla phone’s screen size is just right from what I saw in the unboxing video; I’ve tried a Galaxy Note 2 and it was just way too big, even for my large hands and bad eyes.
I’m of the opposite opinion, I think it’s too small for my needs. I’m never going to go back to anything smaller than my Galaxy Note. That said, I’ll wait and hope that Jolla releases a phone with a larger screen eventually. They’ll hopefully have fixed my issues above, too, by then
Oh, believe me, the Note 2 was a beauty to behold, and worked well as a mini-tablet sitting in bed or on the couch. But I use my phone at work as a vital tool, and even with no case (which was very, very scary given our concrete floors) it was just too unwieldy to whip out and use 10 or 20 times an hour.
Now, if I didn’t use my phone as a work tool, I’d love to have a Note again. Reading books on it is pure pleasure, and the note taking/drawing capabilities are awesome. Maybe I should hit my boss up for one of those Samsung Android-based cameras for work use and stop using my personal phone so much…
Nokia felt they were loosing money to fast and needed someone to put money into their business.
Microsoft did that, they obviously had demands.
And ended up selling the whole cell phone business for half of annual pre-Elop revenue.
That’s one hell of a success story.
Microsoft also took on substantially the liabilities of D&S which when viewed in concert with its price tag puts things into greater perspective.
It took on the upkeep of 32,000 employees and basically all of Nokia’s D&S manufacturing footprint and real estate.
It also made available $2B in convertible bonds and licensed mapping for 10 years.
But this is all besides the point, acquisition valuations are about more than book value or earnings multiples its about existing synergies that can be exploited and reducing the seams in an organization.
Nokia has also appreciated its share value quite significantly, doubling its market cap to $30 Billion since the announcement and doubling its stock price to $8.
A lot of investors were made very wealthy which is why the deal was approved by 99.7% of shareholders.
Nokia now will have $10B in cash, no debt, and a truckload of patents it can’t be countersued for. Meanwhile D&S, its executives, employees, and roadmap have been transferred to a much wealthier host which Elop will be at the helm of.
JLG who runs all of devices at MSFT will answer to Elop. The guy is in the running for CEO.
The amount of power that Elop and his Nokia lieutenants will wield within MSFT is significant.
Success story indeed.
You live in a parallel reality. Nokia Chairman Risto Siilasmaa said that Nokia had to be sold to Microsoft because it was the only reasonable decision they could take to save what was left. That it not a success. That is a great failure.
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2013/11/nokia-chairman-defends-stephen-elo…
That’s an actual quote with an actual source from the Nokia Chairman.
He went on to say the deal was motivated by Microsoft wanting a deal that made more sense for them rather than the other way around.
I’m not sure what you expect, that being bought out by a wealthier, larger corporation didn’t align with the financial interests of Nokia shareholders?
The deal wasn’t the only option, but it was the best one.
What do you expect for him to say after such disaster? “I was wrong and I ruined this company, sue me”.
You need help.
Nokia was not losing money, they were losing market-share. Before the fateful memo they were not only making money, but their profit was still growing. The concern was that the growth of the profit was slowing down. They turned slow growth into a huge loss by making the change they way they did.
So you think Elop and Microsoft did this all by themselves with no help or cooperation from a large part of the people in charge at Nokia ?
I think the people in charge at Nokia wanted a CEO and agreed to some plan (I don’t know if this is the same plan/situation that now has unfolded).
No, I am pretty sure there was more than one moron in Nokia management
Nexus 5 has better hardware at a better price point and it runs android apps better than the Jolla phone.
Very exciting. I’m still waiting for anyone to post what frequencies are supported by the modem there.
I’m waiting for the same, but I had read at some point that it should cover all the bases.
I had pre-ordered the 40 option before they removed it, so I managed to get my Jolla shirt!
Not necessarily, since only latest & greatest Qualcomm modems support virtually all LTE bands, and Jolla might not use that yet.
Edited 2013-11-28 03:59 UTC
UPDATE: Someone reported what’s stated on the sticker on the box: GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS: 900/2100 MHz”
While LTE is supported in hardware (not sure which bands), current software didn’t enable it yet, and it will arrive in the future updates.
Edited 2013-12-01 01:31 UTC
Wow. That video sucked.
Came here just to say that. That dude was awful.
This thread contains a lot of info about the user experience using the new Jolla Phone and also some questions answered by the Jolla developers themselves.
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=91875
At last a mobile OS which:
a) Is real linux (this will make porting existing linux applications like VLC easier)
b) Comes pre-installed on an actual device, instead of providing just an image requiring you to flash a Nexus phone (don’t get me wrong, providing an image to flash devices running an other OS is a good thing, but if you want your OS to have a chance going mainstream…)
Edited 2013-11-29 18:11 UTC
After browsing the Maemo.org – forums and following the discussions there it seems Jolla’s new phones aren’t terribly useable, at least for my needs:
* No support for MMS.
* No Caldav.
* No Carddav.
* No SIP.
* XMPP only supports text-messages, no file-transfer or anything.
* It’s seemingly quite crashy atm.
* No voice navigation in maps.
* No offline navigation in maps.
* Apparently doesn’t connect to TKIP-protected WIFI-networks.
It all looks fascinating, though, and Jolla’s representative said that they are aiming for monthly updates, so hopefully in a month’s time some of these issues will have already been fixed.
Well, it is beta, so there’s that. Still, it sounds more usable than my N900, currently sitting on the table behind me collecting dust. I’d love to be using the N900 as my daily phone, but it was left behind long ago.
Wife willing, I’ll get a Jolla as soon as they get stateside. If it coincides with my birthday (a distinct possibility) it will be easy to ask for.
So compared to their competitors, Jolla is providing an unfinished and barely functional SW system running on an outdated HW platform.
Basically, other than a somewhat attractive industrial design (I do like its looks) this thing has nothing going for it really. Yawn…
Edited 2013-12-02 20:01 UTC