New Jolla Handset: Full Demo
As promised, I have finally had a chance to go through the various footage, and here is a really nice video again with Chief Designer Martin.
Apologies for the background noise but it was a hive of activity. Also the question at the end regarding the camera UI will be addressed in updates from Jolla in the coming months.
This video should at least give you more of an idea of the complete package and as I’m watching it back now, I am slightly gutted I didn’t manage to distract Martin and run off with the handset while he wasn’t looking! 
Please also note that some of the finer detail on the handset screen was missed occasionally due to camera DOF settings (I was manually focusing also) and also the blue colour on the screen was over saturated – it’s actually a much nicer cool blue colour but is obviously fully customisable to any colour you like with the ‘ambience’ setting.
I’ve also got so much more to say but have been travelling all day and still not back to base so will try to provide more updates and answer more questions when I can.
Sail On….
It looks really nice! I’m getting more psyched every day!
I’ve read an article on pocket now and I’m getting the feeling this “other half” is going to be really cool. I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s going to be a lot more than just some color changing phone/OS. Although I think it’s a revolutionary feature, they really need to change the name. I mean come on… “other half”?
I hope it’s coming to the Netherlands as soon as possible.
I like your posts and follow your every move.
Sadly there is so much disturbing background noise in that video. I am also not sure why Martin had to highlight that he is the ‘Chief Designer’.
Besides that I am looking forward for a great device.
same here!
A transcript would go a long way to make up for the incomprehensible sound.
Beautiful looking handset, and I like the way different parts of the OS are on sort-of virtual screens, up, down, or back. Very intuitive.
I don’t like the lack of a physical keyboard. I seem to remember when jollatides did the user poll way back when all us geeks voted overwhelmingly for a physical keyboard. Seems Jolla listens to its users just as much as all the other blankety-blank phone-related companies.
I think that the full qwerty will come as a “other half” add on..
where is the front camera for video call from skype??????????????
its so boring ueueueuueueeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
It’s been shown in coverage elsewhere (cbf’d wasting 5min of my time to dig it up), don’t worry, it’s most certainly there.
Skype? You can forget that most likely, but who cares, it’s a shit protocol anyway…
There’s other far more capable & cross-platform/open protocols out there, longer-term it WILL lose.
I can’t see Skype going away anytime soon although for me, just the audio and messaging capabilities that we have in the N9 is enough.
It will go eventually, but that is indeed still some time away…
“just the audio and messaging capabilities that we have in the N9 is enough.”
Same here, & Skype isn’t needed for those sort of services, there’s others that are better quality, more reliable, & almost as ubiquitous/user-friendly.
Skype is important for a lot of small to large businesses and shouldn’t be discounted – I know it’s now run by M$, which is perhaps why it gets short shrift round here but a lot of people became dependent on Skype well before the takeover.
N900, N9 and Ubuntu all Linux-based run it so I don’t see why Sailfish couldn’t in theory. PLUS it should be quite easy to get an Android version running on Sailfish with its Android compatibility.
N9 have poor audio man!!!!
i cant hear it when in my pocket !
Default speaker volume is low, it has zero to do with AQ retard…
i must have skype on my phone until there is an alternative on my phone and pc.
There are, there has been before Skype even existed, they’re not quite as user-friendly, but once set-up they’re “usually” better quality & more reliable.
There is a front camera Mich, just he didn’t mention in the video.
i love jolla!
On my mind, there is some disappointing things in design of first Jolla phone prototype:
1) there is no solid feeling of phone: prototype looks like two separate piece of plastic
2) there is a lot of unused space to the top and to the bottom of the screen
May be it is good design for engineers, it-people but not for ordinary one.
I thing that people look for solid, refinement, elegant, reliable and durable products as was Nokia phones in past. I hope that you, like last Nokia-peoples, and our hope can produce good design, like for example Nokia E51, E52, Nokia N9 and Nokia 1280, etc.
Yaroslav
Ukraine, Kiev
The top half its aluminium BTW. It was mentioned in one of the videos.
I’m not convinced about the slightly jarring design of the other half. You can see the designer’s thinking to make the two halves stand out as separate functional components. It’s honest design.
But, I can also see why some people would rather have something that looked like one slab than to hang that two part design out on show. Maybe its something third parties could do.
Totally agree about the bezel but I would guess that if they’ve not finalised the display panel yet, they’ve not finalised the bezel yet either. Maybe they’ve left a bit of room to expand the panel if the do manage to fit a 1080 HD panel in there. Marc Dillon was cagey about it being ‘one of the HDs’ when asked and Martin mentioned the display in his prototype had no polariser.
Having tiny bezels has it’s downsides, “especially” for a highly gesture driven UX… With no bezels you have to baby the phone, with some decent size bezels you can give it a good grip any which way & not worry about smudging/damaging the screen. Also, I imagine the excess bezel allows more room for the “Other Half”. And in the scheme of things, the bezel isn’t super bad compared to some other phones we’ve seen out there. Esp. at that price point, & esp. from a co. without the massive engineering/design depts that it’s GIANT competitors have.