Marc Dillon with Jolla's phone - cropped

The Jolla smartphone (or Jolla 1 or J1) is a

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

produced by

Jolla Jolla Oy (sometimes referred to as Jolla Ltd.) is a Finnish technology company; vendor and developer of Sailfish OS. Headquartered in Tampere, Finland, Jolla has its own research and development offices in Helsinki, Tampere and Cyberport, Hong ...

that runs the

Sailfish OS Sailfish OS is a Linux-based operating system based on free software, and open source projects such as Mer as well as including a closed source UI. The project is being developed by the Finnish company Jolla. The OS first shipped with the o ...

. Following a successful

crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by crow ...

campaign, it was manufactured in China and released on 27th November 2013. The Jolla smartphone is no longer supported by Sailfish OS updates, the last update compatible being v3.4.0, released on 22 September 2020. Like the

Nokia N9 The Nokia N9 (codename '' Lankku'') is a flagship smartphone developed by Nokia, running on the Linux-based MeeGo mobile operating system. Announced in June 2011 and released in September, it was the first and only device from Nokia with MeeGo, ...

, the Jolla diverted from the at that time conventional smartphone home button centric user interface and only featured a power button and a volume up and down rocker switch. Instead it relied on a swipe interface to close and switch between screens and applications would access a pulley menu to select menu items inside applications. In addition to the comparably limited number of native Sailfish applications available in the Jolla

app store An App Store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the co ...

, the Jolla Phone featured the proprietary

Alien Dalvik Dalvik Turbo is a proprietary alternative to Google's implementation of the Dalvik virtual machine that runs on the Android operating system and other platforms developed by French/Swiss firm Myriad Group. The virtual machine runs the Java pla ...

to provide support for and installing Android-applications from

Aptoide Aptoide is an online marketplace for mobile applications which runs on the Android operating system. In Aptoide, unlike the Android-default Play Store, there is not a unique and centralized store; instead, each user manages their own store. The s ...

First unveiled device

On 20 May 2013, after ''IamTheOtherHalf'' internet campaign, Jolla unveiled the following details and design of their first device: * 4.5 in IPS qHD (540×960) "Estrade" display * Qualcomm

Snapdragon 400 This is a list of Qualcomm Snapdragon systems on chips (SoC) made by Qualcomm for use in smartphones, tablets, laptops, 2-in-1 PCs, smartwatches, and smartbooks devices. Before Snapdragon SoC made by Qualcomm before it was renamed to Snapd ...

1.4

GHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

dual-core * 16 GB of storage memory * microSD support * 8 MPix AF camera, back * 2 MPix camera, front * 2100 mAh user-replaceable battery * "The Other Half" * Gesture-based

* Android applications compliant * MicroUSB * 3.5 mm headphone jack * Buttonless display, gesture navigation * Device in English language version * Qt,

QML QML (Qt Modeling Language) is a user interface markup language. It is a declarative language (similar to CSS and JSON) for designing user interface–centric applications. Inline JavaScript code handles imperative aspects. It is associated wi ...

HTML5 HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML ...

(see: Sailfish OS architecture) The Sailfish OS SDK was published at the end of February 2013. The Jolla smartphone is compatible with frequency bands in the

ITU region The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), in its International Radio Regulations, divides the world into three ITU regions for the purposes of managing the global radio spectrum. Each region has its own set of frequency allocations, the ma ...

1: 4G ( LTE) bands 3 (1800 MHz), 7 (2600 MHz) and 20 (800 MHz); 3G (

WCDMA The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the Inte ...

UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the Inte ...

) band 1 (2100 MHz), 8 (900 MHz); 2G (

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such as ...

) bands 850 Mhz, 900 Mhz, 1800 Mhz, 1900 Mhz. 4G and 3G will work in regions like Europe but support is not guaranteed in regions like America, even if a compatible frequency band is used.

Retail availability

Jolla started shipping the phone in late November 2013. At first the phone could only be ordered on the web from within the European Union. (It is not available in the US via the website or any other outlet.) The phone also became available in the stores of the Finnish carrier DNA on 11 December 2013. On 28 April 2014, the Jolla phone became available in Estonia at the outlets of

Elisa The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (, ) is a commonly used analytical biochemistry assay, first described by Eva Engvall and Peter Perlmann in 1971. The assay uses a solid-phase type of enzyme immunoassay (EIA) to detect the presence ...

Eesti, the first operator outside Finland to offer the phone in their shops. On 25 July 2014 Jolla opened the first Jolla store in

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

in association with

Mobile Invest Mobile may refer to: Places * Mobile, Alabama, a U.S. port city * Mobile County, Alabama * Mobile, Arizona, a small town near Phoenix, U.S. * Mobile, Newfoundland and Labrador Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Mobile (b ...

. On 12 August 2014 Jolla was launched in Hong Kong in a partnership with 3 Hong Kong. In September 2014, Jolla launched in India on e-retailer

Snapdeal Snapdeal is an Indian e-commerce company, based in New Delhi, India. It was founded in February 2010 by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal. Snapdeal was one of the largest online marketplaces in India. Snapdeal targets the value e-commerce segment, ...

. In November 2014, Jolla launched in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

Support

Sailfish OS updates were provided for the Jolla 1 for 7 years. Other Linux distributions like

postmarketOS postmarketOS (abbreviated as pmOS) is an operating system primarily for smartphones, based on the Alpine Linux distribution. postmarketOS was launched on 26 May 2017 with the source code available on GitHub before migrating to GitLab in 2018. I ...

continue to provide updates for the original Jolla phone but don't support calls, SMS or mobile data.

References

Footnotes

External links

* *

Engadget ''Engadget'' ( ) is a multilingual technology blog network with daily coverage of gadgets and consumer electronics. ''Engadget'' manages ten blogs four of which are written in English and six have international versions with independent editori ...

review on 2013-11-2
A closer look at the Jolla phone: good intentions, bad delivery
*

TechRadar ''TechRadar'' is an online publication owned by Future and focused on technology. It has editorial teams in the US, UK and Australia and provides news and reviews of tech products and gadgets. It was launched in 2007 and expanded to the US in ...