Weekend Watch: PhoneDog reviews Jolla and Sailfish OS

For the past week, PhoneDog has been playing with the Sailfish powered Jolla device. They unboxed it and now bring their review.

They find ‘The Other Half’ to be very unique and clever.  It feels solid, light and comfortable to hold. They like the design of what appears to be two materials placed at different directions; curved surfaces on one pair of sides, flat on the other.

Not very good screen outdoors. Not the sharpest screens but not the worst. Battery life on most days with regular use is a day and a half.

The camera has a good level of controls but performance neither here nor there. For big photo nerds, this isn’t for you.

Jolla and Sailfish OS according to PhoneDog, came from Nokia originally, as in being ‘born – sort of – out of the MeeGo OS found on the Nokia N9’ hence why the icons/gestures look familiar. On the gesture side though, unlike the n9 takes a lot of getting used to. Something pretty much all major reviewers have said about Sailfish.

The whole ‘blackberry 10 style cards’. No one remembers Web OS or Maemo cards or even N9’s cards before BB10 was ever born.

Doing anything within an app is apparently confusing.

Once you get used to the OS, it’s “OK”. It’s not fantastic but it is unique and different and nice to have something completely gesture based. Could do with being more user friendly. Not helped by not having many native apps, though you do get Android support.  They’re not fantastic either but better than nothing.

Performance is also just ok. Sometimes slow, sometimes fluid. But never quick and fast. Navigating the browser is frustrating.

Unless you’re really looking for something different and unique or want to support an independent company or just curious, then Jolla is worth considering.

Their unboxing

Category: Nokia