However, as I've got older I find large phones more and more unwieldy, and I couldn't find a small enough SailfishOS phone to switch to. I'm now running LineageOS on a Jelly Star. The form factor is perfect for me.
Would I return to SailfishOS? Absolutely. But there'd need to be a small phone in the line up for me to migrate to.
I ask, because the device is not officially supported by LineageOS, but if it works well with a different approach it would be an interesting option for me as well.
Any notes on your experience?
Actually, typing this comment right now with this phone.
1. Keyboard: MessagEase or ThumbKey + Jelly Star is a perfect match.
2. Bitwarden passkeys + Firefox doesn't work. As I've researched, same with LineageOS. Didn't check Chrome, though.
3. All apps work without issues. Banking, Google Wallet, taxi, etc. It's a regular Android.
4. Battery isn't great, but charges fast and enough to carry on through the most of the day.
5. It's perfect for running or other outdoor activities.
6. 4G only, I sometimes also use it as an external modem for the laptop, and definitely would appreciate 5G.
7. Android 13 and no updates:/
All in all, I'm happy, but if I could foresee it advance, then I'd go with Jelly Max instead, because freshier Android version, Bitwarden + Firefox passkeys and 5G support.
Unfortunately, Jelly Max a bit bigger than Jelly Star, but still much smaller than other regular smartphones.
For the last 2 years I've been using a similar device from Unihertz's competitor, Cubot. Namely the King Kong Mini 3. No issues, very solid. Given how tiny it is, it gets lots of attention and marks me out as an eccentric (no objections). But stock Android, of course.
Unfortunately, the Sailfish UI itself feels "different for the sake of different" and not because it's functionally more useful. I think the UI is pretty ugly and difficult to navigate. Anyone who "loved" Win8 tiles and/or Windows Mobile flat monochrome UI always praises the SailfishOS UI but outside of that small group I don't think the UI is that functional. It's definitely eschewed it's MeeGo / Nokia N9 UI heritage.
What always surprised me about SFOS is despite running on some pretty decent hardware, the UI always felt sluggish, especially given it's kind of reversed-big-text UI paradigm which shouldn't take much work to render.
I'm glad there's an alternative, but sad it's hasn't seen a reasonable set of UI improvements despite its age.
Considering you almost can't do banking, and in some places interact with the government, without a locked down phone...
I'm pretty sure that, if there are security benefits, they have been artificially tied to the use of the company's distribution method, that coincidentally really needs to be sending usage statistics, monitoring, etc. Surely there exist no conflicts of interest to be found.
100% security theater, and here we are.
Not sure about equivalent apps for other regions, but I don't see why they shouldn't work.
[1] https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/swedish-bank-id-swish/11781/3
[1] https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/banking-apps-on-sailfish-os/1...
[1] https://xdaforums.com/t/discussion-the-root-and-mod-hiding-f...
(But whether any EU member is capable of rising to this (very shallow) challenge... well, I'm justifiably cynical.)
Their UI looked novel, but wasn't that great in practice. It wasn't stable (hopefully that changed) and the lack of real apps was killing it before and now even more, as more banks/govs require some "trusted" apps
And, to my eyes, it simply looks better.
(I actually do not want to travel to the US, period. But that's a different story.)
[1] Includes UK, as they have FDE unlock laws. No cooperation = years of prison.
(Typed on SailfishOS)
> LTE FDD: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28AB, 66
> LTE TDD: 34, 38, 39, 40, 41
> 5G NR: n1, n2, n3, n5, n7, n8, n12, n20, n26, n28, n38, n40, n41, n66, n77, n78
But I have no idea if that means it'll work for you in the US/elsewhere.
Yeah, that's a fun part of the crazy bandplan for lte/5g where it's just a little here and there without global coordination.
But a look here [1], says it has all 5G bands for AT&T, 2/4 bands for TMo, and 4/5 for Verizon. Seems maybe a bit iffy for TMo, one of the missing bands is n71 (600 MHz) which is extended range that helps fill in coverage.
Then I could become a PC in our pocket.
But it's a cool idea.
The market is there , product is loved and ppeople have proved they are willing to take some pain adopting the product.But still the execution to serve that market is shambolic to say the least.
Too much friction and limiting the potential - thats why i reiterate. The SailFishOS is a delight technically and aesthetically - the business side though needs a major overhaul.
Just thinking out loud , they could partner with someone likee huawei to preload for EU/rest of world customers that cannot use HarmonyOS outside CH. Or even one of the other smaller OEM with access to the deep tech ecosystem to give a prebuild/preloaded f;agship at a cost competitive price. Or do a Apple and auction search/maps defaults to keep BOM costs down and aim for widespread adoption.
Right after that I got a Blackberry Z10 and there's just something about the multitasking UI in both of these OSs' that just felt like it was the right way of doing it.
Blackberry OS 10 and MeeGo where so wonderful, I truly had a rich experience of mobile phone OSs' growing up.
I'm not sure about Jolla as much though. Like I enjoy having this additional option but I wished they digged deeper into features other than enhanced privacy. Not that I'm complaining, I enjoy having enhanced privacy but if they added more productivity features like the Blackberry Hub.
Europeans, I guess good luck, have fun. I followed them in the early days and ran early builds of Sailfish on the N9, had high hopes but have long given up on them.
EDIT: I will say though I'm still impressed by the libhybris project which went on to make it possible to run linux distros on android SoC's, but the guy who did that for Jolla I think is not with the company anymore for some time.
Their technical specifications state:
> Cellular: 4G + 5G with dual nano-SIM and global roaming modem configuration[0]
Is that implying "global" is actually not global?
[0] https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-preorder
It was what I was implying.
I did find a better link: https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-sept-26
LTE FDD: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28AB, 66 LTE TDD: 34, 38, 39, 40, 41 5G NR: n1, n2, n3, n5, n7, n8, n12, n20, n26, n28, n38, n40, n41, n66, n77, n78
So this is a strange band list for US, it can roam. It’s not ideal for any carrier outside of a city (n41, n77 2.5ghz/3.5ghz) supported, well maybe. n25 notably missing but subset n2 works via mbfi. band 71 missing for low-band tmobile rural coverage. 13 and 14 missing for firstnet/verizon lowband. Good to see n66.
Now setting that aside that yes, I was partially wrong, we got more bands than usual, it still needs to pass through certification and get IMS profiles from the US carriers to make calls.
Anyways, it’s possible things changed, they have new people in leadership, maybe they pivoted, I just don’t think it’s likely, I’ve yet to see a mediatek flagship or even upper mid-range that is well configured for US market.
Would they have zero radio coverage, or sub-optimal coverage?
Could be a feature for those wanting a Wi-Fi only mobile Linux device.
Sub-optimal for data if it allows attach. If they don’t have working IMS profile it may reject the attach at worst or just have no working calls/texts at best (we do not have fallback 2g/3g except for 911 on 2g with pockets of t-mobile). There is 911 IMS profile but it sometimes doesn’t work with foreign phones, its tricky: https://optimerainc.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/OptimERA_...
> Could be a feature for those wanting a Wi-Fi only mobile Linux device.
I’m sorry but this is cope for a phone. At that point just buy a better linux device not built on a complex phone soc, it’s not a phone then.
- company folded and changed hand multiple times, including russian ownership
- the tablet scandal leaving users with lost funds
- closed source parts
- locked bootloader
- charging a $50 device reset fee
- not much change in Sailfish OS since ages
- buggy Android compatibility and near zero native devs, all jumped ship
At this point I think they are just one of the grifters preying on naive "EU first" supporters shoveling whatever they still have in a new casing.
I'd love the idea of a greenfield EU Linux mobile OS, but I don't think it should come from this company.
Realistically building a production quality database takes 10 years. Building a production quality game engine takes 10 years.
They're building a mobile operating system and the hardware it runs on; that's harder and a moving target.
How long do you think it takes to build a supply chain of hardware that doesn't suck (if it takes 2 years to get moving: you need to start with hardware specs for 2 years from now) and an operating system that doesn't suck when you're also trying to catch up to a major duopoly cranking out devices at an unfathomable volume, with more money than most nation states?
Your standard is "succeed against Google and Apple within 13 years on a shoestring budget with no volume discounts." How can any project clear that bar?
What would you do?
Absolutely not. My standard is the many other AOSP-based ROMs communities and companies that were founded around them, having success within a few years - yes, they could lean on the ecosystem compatibility and didn't produce their own hardware, but maybe that's a more viable way to start?
"shoestring budget with no volume discounts" does not explain the points of criticism above.
Even if it’s not for lack of trying or lack of talent on their part, the fact remains their efforts could have been spent more productively elsewhere.
Could*, maybe than should, unless you believe that all those things will apply to the phone they plan to release in September. Otherwise I don't see the issue with a company keep trying until they get something right (or give up). Why not?
I have no idea about the state of ModemManager though, because that has been historically always painful to use.
I'm currently betting personally on a Hackberry Pi variant. It's a Wi-Fi only device, so doesn't have a SIM without a breakout/addon board though. But at least it's fully open source and not whatever SailfishOS is. To me, SailfishOS is the same kind of fail like the "ZTE Open" with FirefoxOS, which, contrary to its name, was not open at all.
I'm a bit confused by this. Are you saying that the developers who once wrote native Sailfish OS apps are no longer writing those native apps?
Is there any hope for using the responsive libadwaita programs from the Mobile Linux space? I realise this isn't particularly large, but it is active.
Currently not, if I understand correctly. There are plans to update or rewrite the Wayland compositor. If all goes well it should support GTK programs and I assume libadwaita too.
on the other, I really, really loved my original jolla phone back in the day. I happily used it as my daily driver and only phone for 2 years. Until it had a hardware fault which I could no longer repair via the company.
Sure, but somehow RCS is viable in 2026. Old projects can come back!
And I agree, it’s turned into a bandwagon grift. They’re also selling AI boxes that do who knows what.
It's not an improvement over common closed source Android varieties either, and will certainly have worse app compatibility than Android. Hardware switches are irrelevant if you can't trust the software.
Anyway, it's as secure as any Linux distro as it uses the same standard stack as servers and desktops and does sandboxing[1], which is also really nice from a development perspective. You can harden it like you would a Linux box using standard Linux tools + kernel features.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailfish_OS#Software_architect...
Also, what's up with all the sour grapes from people who use or develop GrapheneOS? There seems to be a general force dismissing Sailfish as insecure, without ever explaning how. Can't we just be friends in a de-googled world? Are people from Graphene feeling insecure about Sailfish as competition? It feels to me like infighting in small churches. It turns me off from ever considering GrapheneOS before I even looked into it.
/e/OS: https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1946269698498105813
iodéOS: https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1892555359656534284
CalyxOS: https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1953856218931376421
Unplugged: https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1861593971685798351
PinePhone: https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1964441930760409499
Well, Motorola is already doing that :)
I for one is happy that there is at least someone out there not happy with the status quo and go with something completely different and homegrown instead of just going with customizing Android and calling it a day.
