User reports - Sailfish X

answered 2017-11-02 16:58:43 +0300

L_A_G
1410 ●19 ●20 ●26

My experience as someone who had a Jolla phone, switched to an Android phone and now came back are overall pretty positive. A short summary of my experiences so far, using the Nexus 5 and Jolla phone as reference, formated as bullet points for maximum readability:

Positive:

• Very nicely built hardware that feels sturdy in your hand
• Superb battery life (in my use the Nexus 5 I replaced it with lasted about a day on a brand new battery while this thing lasts for 2 days)
• Gorgeous screen
• Seemingly durable (dropped it on a wood floor and it didn't even leave a mark, not the most demanding height however)
• Very good android app compatibility
• Still has a MicroSD card slot when flagship android devices dropped it years ago
• SailfishOS is still as powerful and smooth as it always was
• Still none of the spying built into Android, iOS and WP

Negative:

• The self-flash process, while nothing close to a complete showstopper, was none the less a bit annoying
• Battery replacement, while possible, is an unnecessary pain in the you-know-what with the way you need a suction cup and a heat gun to get the back cover off and glue strips to get it back on again
• No double tap to wake (found myself trying to use it constantly for the first week)

Mixed:

• Native app support is as bad as always, but android support is still good and improved compared to the Jolla phone
• While a huge upgrade from the original, the camera still has some minor focus issues
• The media player is as good as it ever was, but still annoyingly needs to indexes all of your music from the nothing every single time you start it up (one in the N9 didn't need to do this despite being very similar)
• Browser is as awful as it always was, thankfully you're spoiled for good choices in the android apps

I do have to say that I was initially a bit skeptical about Jolla's choice of hardware, but having used mine since the weekend after it came out, I do have to say that they definitely made a very wise choice. Let's hope that with licensing to third parties going Jolla can hire more people to get things like the native app store properly sorted out to attract more developers and do something about that dreadful default browser.

answered 2017-11-02 13:32:00 +0300

femtopeta
1406 ●20 ●30 ●34

http://reinblau.de/

Could somebody check if changing MAC address works on Xperia/Sailfish X?

That would mean

ifconfig wlan0 hw ether XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

really changes the address after next "up" command.

In Jolla 1 the command didn't produce an error, but didn't change the MAC either. Apparently due to the fact that the binary blob driver wasn't capable or couldn't be addressed properly. On rooted Android phones changing MAC address usually works.

Sorry for hijacking this thread with a question, but I thought it would be the best location for the info.

answered 2017-10-30 11:08:46 +0300

Pekka
281 ●5 ●8 ●15

updated 2017-10-30 11:11:19 +0300

My eXperiences

• How is the performance in general. Is there a significant difference to Jolla C?

Happy with performance. More responsive than Jolla1

• How is your experience with bluetooth connection still in beta?

Did not got my BT headset to work. Shows only MAC for devices, no names.

• How much time is needed to flash the phone?

Had bootlocked Experia and took good 2 hours to get it working. Mostly due to W10 and non-signed drivers and poor non-up-to-date instructions from Sony. Not for beginners for sure.

• Is the camera working fast? Can you post some pictures to let us see the quality ?

Camera seems responsible, had not took many pictures but was disappointed it's features. Thats 10 years behind others. One of the reasons to take the Sony was quality it's camera, but the app.. <sigh>.</sigh>

Have had no hickups after installation, only the first boot got stuck and gave me the wtf moment.

MISSING: Wifi hotspot. Not visible nor usable. Have to swap between Jolla1 and X because of this. This is a pain for me.

..also lost some apps that rely on Google services but yes I know, this is a trade-off and that's the reason having Jolla in a first place.

And Exchange is not syncing always. Luckily Outlook client is available.

In generally, happy with it and will be supporting in future too. Just fix the Hotspot ;)

answered 2017-10-30 09:06:55 +0300

Marius
1596 ●44 ●71 ●83

For me flashing was a bit confusing, but it worked well at the end. Xpeia is of course much faster than Jolla 1, however I experience strange slowdowns with email application. Suddenly I have to wait for email to appear (already downloaded) or there is a significant lag when changing the mailboxes. I also have problem setting up synchronization with Exchange account. I have two of them and the first one worked well, while the second one - never managed to succeed (however there is a trick described on this forum about killing the process in the middle - I have to try it). Other strange thing is that after reboot Xperia is not asking for the PIN number of the SIM card. Is that normal?

answered 2017-10-29 23:11:20 +0300

White
361 ●8 ●12 ●17

updated 2017-10-30 09:12:42 +0300

My experience. I have Lumia 950 XL and iPhone 7 Plus and both phones are very interesting to use and to test. Of course i want to compare new device with Sailfish OS. Earlier i tried Jolla 1, but due to weaknesses in hardware (especially display) i sell it. But (!) Sailfish OS was in my mind. So, 1 week ago i bought Sony Xperia X 5121 and SailfishOS X for it. Flashing was very smooth for me and i didnt get any issues with it. First impressions - brilliant interface, everything is logical and easy to find. Sony hardware is enough fast, screen is bright and have very nice colors (not like Retina display on my iPhone 7 Plus, but close to it). System interface works just fine and i didnt get any troubles with native apps (except some weird lags with mail app, lags in browser and some page scaling problems, but all of those problems were already discussed in forums). I'm trying to use native apps for my everyday task, but if i can't find it i'm using Play market to download such apps.

Anyway, i think, that it is very flexible to use several sources for downloading the software. In common - Xperia X and Sailfish OS X - best solution for enthusiasts and IT geeks, who tierd from Android or IOS with they greedy policy. In a few days Xperia X will be my main smartphone and 7 Plus will be as a second one.

But, guys, all of us shoul understand, that our community is too small yet. Resources, that Jolla have is also not very large. And that is why developement, bug fixes and features releases are very slow. And slow releases - slow people reaction, who want to buy, but they need working finctuions. Not all of them wants to use two smartphones to combine functionality. So, Jolla, Please, try to do your best for us and for your own future.

And one more for Jolla. Sometimes you should think not like engineers or programmers. Think like users. Users want to use camera, BT, Wi-Fi and those features SHOULD work out of the box. By default. In our case, camera, for example, works very slow, always losts focus, killing colors and sometimes geometry. You SHOUL fix such bugs BEFORE you launchung your OS over the world. Even geeks desiers working smartphone.

Positive: New hardware with potential for heavy apps; Nice performance and usability; Good Android compatibility -> large amount of apps; Secutity and privacy;

Negative: Small range of supported phones; Horrible camera app -> there is no sence to use it for photography; Issues with default browser and mail client app (speed, troubles with SSL certificates) Unknown perspective for future native apps;

answered 2017-10-28 14:31:56 +0300

dizzi90
31 ●1 ●2 ●6

With regard to flashing I had two issues which cost me a lot of time.

1. Installing the fastboot driver was not straight forward, because it wasn't signed.
2. Flashing appeared to fail with Sony logo bootloop, but this was due to Sailfish not booting with the formatted SD card still being in the device.

http://technicalecstasyblog.blogspot.com/2017/10/experiences-installing-sailfish-x.html

This is my first time using Sailfish. The camera is not as good as when I was using android, but it's passable. In android I would just click the camera button from the lock screen and it would go straight into the camera app, which I miss. When you want to take a pic, you want to get to it quickly.

There is an issue with scrolling in Sailbook, which the dev says is due to sailfish x adaption. Details here

Aliendalvik is awesome. Without it I would definitely not have made the switch. There are quite a few apps that create pop ups in-app complaining about the lack og Google Play Services though, which is a pain. With the exception of Apple Music I've not seen any apps that cannot be used in aliendalvik. That is most likely because I am still exploring Sailfish and therefore try to solve things with sailfish apps before I surrender to using android.

I really enjoy the fact that you can expand the messages app with libpurple. I'm using the facebook messenger one, but it's a little buggy. I keep getting duplicate messages that have not been marked as read in facebook and therefore get sent to me again. So I've had to have the messenger app in aliendalvik as well which I use to mark the messages as read to not get spammed. I'm guessing that is more about facebook not being transparent about how their services operate than anything to do with Sailfish.

Typing is something which seems to be a lot slower in Sailfish. Probably largely less good predictions because Sailfish has less data on typing habits. I'd like to see something like Fleksy or SwiftKey on android. Not sure how it's best solved while being sensitive to privacy concerns.

I've not had much luck using media-buttons on my headset (wired). I have a Bose QC25 with both the android style buttons and apple ones. From my searching I've found that apple is the one that is supposed to be compatible with MPRIS. Volume buttons work fine, but play and pause I've not been able to use more than a couple of times. More experimentation is needed to pin down the issue.

answered 2017-10-24 06:53:59 +0300

apo
123 ●4 ●5 ●10

Default Browser is not able to render more advanced pages. Volvooceanrace.com/tracker is an example. A port of Firefox would be perfect.

The themes are pretty much unnecessary. Just geeky looking stuff without any real function. At least it could be placed in the side panel in favor for the options and status going to the top, like android/iOS.

Basic shortcuts should stay in the same place. Apps move around in the apps menu constantly. No muscle memory possible.

Android environment is absolutely great for a future transiston-phase I won't start yet due to the stated issues above.

Price is very high for newbies.

Looking forward to support this project with buying future releases of the OS anyway.

answered 2017-10-22 11:33:41 +0300

ralooyar
1713 ●23 ●53 ●42

updated 2018-01-07 16:58:12 +0300

My experience :

Buying Sailfish X

Once my Xperia X device had been delivered, I wanted to purchase and download Sailfish X to jump straight into falshing action... But this flow was abruptly interrupted at noticing Jolla will only accept payment via credit card. Since I do not own a credit card, flashing time was over for this day. :( See jolla-shop-sailfishx-purchase-method

Thankfully I found a relative, who could help me out in this issue, so purchase and download worked and the journey could continue.

Time to read some documentation:

• https://jolla.com/sailfishxinstall/
• flashing-README.txt provided in SailfishOS-2.1.3.5-1-f5121-0.0.1.16.zip, which you download from https://shop.jolla.com/downloads/

Updating Android software version

I bought a new Xperia X with locked (but unlockable) bootloader. The initial system version was 34.2.A.0.333, so I started the update process... For me this was a very long prozess: I guess 6 hours of download, install, download, install, ... of different software updates. Here is the full list my Xperia X went through:

• starting at 34.2.A.0.333
• update to 34.2.A.2.47
• update to 34.2.A.2.69
• update to 34.3.A.0.194
• update to 34.3.A.0.206
• update to 34.3.A.0.217
• update to 34.3.A.0.228 (<- the desired target version)
• update to 34.3.A.0.238

At least the Xperia X does the most part unattended. You only have to tab "install new update now" once in a while. So you can do this along the way doing other stuff.

Maybe faster (but more complex): I have read (https://together.jolla.com/question/168870/versionnumber-build-number/?answer=168914#post-id-168914) that one can use the Emma tool to directly install version 34.3.A.0.228, but this would require time to install the Emma tool first. ;)

Unlocking the bootloader and flashing:

Using the tutorial sailfish-x-install-flash-on-linux and a linux pc, this process worked like a charm. No struggling with Windows driver issues or installing large Android SDKs. On Debian linux I only had to install android-tools-fastboot (118 kByte) and the whole unlocking and flashing process took 30 minutes (+ time reading the documentations).

Very first steps in the new SailfishX:

• The display looks way better than the one in my Jolla1 (brighter and sharper) :)
• Why do I have to go to the tutorial again? Where is the option to skip it? Fortunately it is not very long. :|
• Installation of android support failed :(
• Installation of predictive keyboard failed :(
• No "double tab to turn on display" :(
• Hmm, I can't close apps by wiping down on this device - Guess, I need to check the device settings

Time to call it a day. Configuring and (re-)installing apps will be done tomorrow.

Hardware test after flashing

I tested the Xperia hardware before flashing (using the Android/Sony test tools of the "service menu", which you can find by calling * # * # 7378423 # * # ) and now it is time to test the hardware after flashing, again. To get access to Sailfish test utilities, either call # * # 310 # * # * or (enable developer mode and type csd on the commandline).

Test results:

• OK:
  • LCD (no dead or broken pixels)
  • LCD touch
  • buttons
    • power button
    • volume up/down
    • photo button (two-step-functionality missing, only "full press" == "take photo", no "half press" == "focus")
  • phone call
  • mobile data
  • back camera
  • camera flash
  • front camera
  • WLAN
  • proximity sensor
  • light sensor
  • gyro / accelerometer
  • top / bottom microphone (there are two separate tests, but it seems to make no difference, whether I speak in the top or the bottom microphone!?!?)
  • loudspeaker (this test is great! It definitely is a loud speaker! :)
  • left/right speaker (make sure, you have the smartphone in landscape orientation)
  • headset
    • headset button
    • volume buttons
    • headset microphone
    • headset audio (without the crackling of my Jolla1)
  • GPS
  • LED
  • vibration
  • USB charging
  • read/write SD-card
• FAIL: (exactly those mentioned at the Jolla Shop disclaimer, so I knew what I bought; that's fair)
  • compass
  • fingerprint sensor
  • bluetooth (test pass in "csd", but no devices found in "Settings" > "Bluetooth" > "Search for devices")
  • FM Radio

=> Conclusion: The most important stuff is working. :) But it would be nice, if Jolla staff would get bluetooth in a "working" state, too. Keep going. cheer :)

Update on bluetooth

Having read https://together.jolla.com/question/169519/sony-xperia-bluetooth/?answer=169564#post-id-169564, I gave connecting by bluetooth a few more tries (about 10 or 20). In the end I managed to send a picture from Jolla1 to XperiaX. But this process needs some more fixing by Jolla staff to work more flawless.

Application check

Applications, which worked without problems:

• Phone calls
• Firefox
• Notes
• Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection

Applications with problems:

• OsmAnd
• CodeReader
• SpeedCrunch mobile

Finally migrating to SailfishX

Application problems have been fixed by workaround:

• OsmAnd Voice: Fixed by installing Google TTS Engine (Poor Maps is a very interesting native alternative, but not mature enough yet for my usecases)
• CodeReader: Problem fixed in Git Repository, but it is block from Jolla Store because of other issues. So switching to android code reader "QR scanner" (from FDroid repository).
• SpeedCrunch: Buttons in app not useable, but you can switch to Sailfish keyboard to type in your terms

=> Finally migrating from Jolla1 to Sailfish X (06.01.2018)

Process went very smooth via backup to SD and restore from SD in "Settings".

Data migrated via backup/restore: - addressbook - SMS - calender events - notes - pictures

Data not migrated via backup/restore (manual migration necessary): - music - installed native apps + data - installed android apps + data

I'm curious about, how Sailfish X is performing "in production". :) But I guess, very well.

Minor issues during migration: - contacts from SIM card are displayed in address book - delete those - contacts disappear - reboot - contacts back again => soluition

To be continued...

answered 2017-10-21 19:39:13 +0300

dysko
566 ●11 ●16 ●18

is it only me or we are missing 16GB of space? Device has 32 GB but i am seeing only 16.

answered 2017-10-21 17:02:43 +0300

Mack_
21 ●2 ●2 ●5

When you turn of your phone and restart, do you have a text: "your device has been ulocked and cant be trusted"