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Jolla vs Bq Aquarius Ubuntu phone [off-topic]

asked 2015-04-01 20:55:27 +0200

SuperPhone gravatar image

updated 2015-04-01 21:21:28 +0200

I got my Bq Aquarius Ubuntu phone. The Ubuntu Touch gestures felt almost immediately natural just like in Nokia N9. After using Jolla for over a year I still didn't quite get it. All the small things I dislike on Jolla are fixed in Ubuntu Touch, for example a cool pull-down notification area / quick settings system and the "swipe to switcher" gesture like it was in Nokia N9. No peeks, just a pleasant animation that feels right. For some reason Ubuntu Touch is also much easier to operate single-handed. The current iteration of Sailfish is a bit more robust to be honest, but Ubuntu phone will be my primary device now and in the future. It's surprisingly good. My phone is now actually running the same OS (Ubuntu 14.10) as my desktop and that's awesome.

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The question has been closed for the following reason "question is off-topic or not relevant" by JSEHV
close date 2016-02-01 19:42:05.067996

Comments

3

first of all ubuntu, bb10, sailfish are operating systems that move huge step for me will be great systems if still polishing and three are only based on gestures and swipes, now three the most advansed is bb10 your last 10.3.1 upgrade and integration of bb blend is wonderful, Sailfish continues after the version 2.0 shown in mwc 2015 made it clear I go much but must have points of attachment with 1.0 interface eg multitasking was more interactive than the version 2.0 (added small buttons on the window), finally this ubuntu that while I walk to steps as well huge most ball is made with scopes also use more resources (cores, ram, etc) need to optimize more the system so that it can run smoothly with a dual core processor and maximum a four cores but the experience is nice but eye Cannonical must put attention since many users balls with scopes are made (for me should only exist these default, the scope of application, the scope of social networks with updates (facebook, twitter), the scope of news (newspapers and magazines), the scope Videos (gallery of the phone, youtube (your subscriptions with the latest uploaded), dalimotion, vimeo and netflix), the musical scope, last played songs of the phone, also soundcloud, dezzer and spotify, the last scope photo (gallery, Flyckr, pinterest and stuff).

There are many people who think putting a scope eg a web page as Cnet (it shows all the information and is not it just shows you some of the information and if you want to have it complete information you need to open the browser or application) then to have that scope, that's when he sees the scopes as something useless, so if Cannonical lse put the batteries and only leaves the aforementioned escopes would be a great forward motion for example is music with your last songs added to the player or the heard last and apart if you soundcloud, spotify or dezeer show you the lists you've created and last added by your favorite artists and be able to play from there so if something interesting but first Cannonical should regulate scopes to avoid anything can be a scope

Now if we go by the UI there is nothing more beautiful than Sailfish, also the optimization of the system sailfish is better than ubuntu and bb10.

sailfish is from my point of more intuitive, beautiful and fast view (an example is close windows with a single swipe from top to low ubuntu you need at least two movements)

Jose101192 ( 2015-04-01 23:07:16 +0200 )edit
7

Is this from Google Translate or something? I didn't understand much.

SuperPhone ( 2015-04-02 00:49:42 +0200 )edit
13

I really do not understand why the OP got voted down for sharing his/her experience and opinion regarding another somehow related OS. There is nothing wrong with looking beyond one's own nose regardless if it's - as in this case - about a concurring OS. Here's my vote up.

moosiqpipl ( 2015-04-02 00:51:16 +0200 )edit
4

"My phone is now actually running the same OS (Ubuntu 14.10) as my desktop and that's awesome." — I don't see why this is awesome. Afaik Windows is trying to do the same and having the same software on a variety of different devices. Why? I really don't understand. IMHO, devices are different and so should software be different respectively. I don't want touch-oriented UI on my desktop, and neither do I want terminals on my phone.

If you're a fanboy of operating system XYZ, then of course this all makes sort of sense.

Okw ( 2015-04-02 10:57:10 +0200 )edit
3

I don't want touch-oriented UI on my desktop either. It's more about the base system. You can e.g. develop your application natively on your desktop and be pretty sure that it will work also on the phone and even the same libraries you are using are there. Of course this is not always the case.

SuperPhone ( 2015-04-02 13:16:58 +0200 )edit

12 Answers

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28

answered 2015-04-02 09:56:48 +0200

lispy gravatar image

updated 2015-04-02 14:09:13 +0200

Coming from webOS I also thought about Ubuntu Phone.

Here's why I bought a Jolla not an Ubuntu phone:

  • Android support
  • Better hardware
  • small, but existing app ecosystem
  • trust in Nokia team with mobility
  • regular updates
  • community driven (Canonical is not very good at this)
  • availability

...oh, and I can keep using my Touchstone charger. ;-D

How does Ubuntu phone hold up to these points? Honestly curious.

PS: Isn't it great? We live in a world where people can choose between Sailfish, Firefox and Ubuntu OS on their phone. The power of opensource... This was unthinkable two years ago.

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Comments

4

Better hardware ? What's the most intersting thing in a full touch device? The screen ... Then, compare the screen of the Jolla vs BQ phone and then we will be able to speak together ;). Without joking, hardware of BQ phone is almost perfect (for no gaming user). But clearly, Ubuntu Phone is not as optimized as Sailfish

mousse04 ( 2015-04-02 10:33:56 +0200 )edit

I have never seen the BQ in person. But sad enough, I have the feeling you could be right about the screen...

lispy ( 2015-04-02 11:08:59 +0200 )edit
1

What's better about BQ's screen? AFAIK the resolution and screen size are the same as Jolla's. Colors are also pretty good IMHO, but viewing angles may be waay better.

(anyway, good to see another webOS refugee here!)

g7 ( 2015-04-02 13:20:24 +0200 )edit
1

There are updates coming all the time, SMS and calls work perfectly, Bq hardware wins the current Jolla hands down (and Meizu MX4 is coming). Ubuntu already has a pretty big ecosystem. Jolla is more community driven and has Android support. On the other hand I would be using an Android phone if I wanted Android apps.

SuperPhone ( 2015-04-02 13:34:11 +0200 )edit
3

add another webOS refugee...

chappi ( 2015-04-02 14:25:30 +0200 )edit
14

answered 2015-04-02 07:36:29 +0200

eson gravatar image

updated 2015-04-02 07:37:42 +0200

Considering the huge amount of pre installed junk that comes with the Bq Aquarius Ubuntu phone, I would never even think of abandoning my Jolla/SailfishOS, for Ubuntu Touch. To get rid of the crap, you'll have to re flash the phone with a custom image... just like android.

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What do you mean exactly? I noticed only stuff that I actually liked. Maybe this is the problem with Jolla: it's a phone made by developers for themselves. That's not what people actually want.

SuperPhone ( 2015-04-02 07:51:55 +0200 )edit
16

@SuperPhone - Oh, I know a lot of people likes individual parts of what comes pre installed in the Ubuntu phone, but that's not the point. The point is that I want to choose myself, what my phone should contain. I don't want a device filled with stuff that someone else has chosen for me.

eson ( 2015-04-02 08:03:41 +0200 )edit
10

@SuperPhone: Without wanting to be rude or unpolite... your points of view are as subjective as anybody's here, so it might be more appropriate to avoid statements like "That's not, what people want". Please take into consideration, that there might be quite some people here, who don't share your opinion at all. That would be a very respectful way of discussing. Thank you! 😃

R.G. Sidler ( 2015-04-02 14:40:40 +0200 )edit
14

answered 2015-04-02 10:48:30 +0200

mousse04 gravatar image

I would like to share also my view about these 2 new comer OS. I have both a Jolla and BQ phone. 1st, Ubuntu Phone is not as optimized as Sailfish. It is quite slow in the menu (at least 5s to open setting menu ...). Switching between scope can slow down the device etc ... About hardware, BQ phone is clearly better than the Jolla. As I said in a comment above, the screen is so much better on the BQ phone compared to the Jolla ... and for a full touch device, you know that screen can be important ;).

About swipe, I have to say that Ubuntu brings swipe gesture to the next level compared to the Jolla. The N9 was the best but clearly, UbuntuPhone is almsot as good as Meego-Harmattan on this point. So, in term of pure pleasure, it is better to use UbuntuPhone than Sailfish.

Gallery, Music app are also better on Ubuntu. I can send MMS with Ubuntu, I can't with Sailfish (problem with orange french operator).

In term of ecosystem, Sailfish wins .... but for how long? Now that Ubuntu Phone are released, let's talk about that in 1 year ;).

Bluetooth connection with car is crappy with Ubuntu compared to Sailfish.

My conclusion is : UbuntuPhone is very intersting but a lot of work must be done. System is absolutely not optimized compared to Sailfish (I lost 30% during night in flight mode with BQ phone ...). Swipe are so much better on Ubuntu. Multitasking is better on Sailfish. Keyboard is better on Ubuntu but must be improved ...

Clearly they are 2 good OS and I have bought Jolla and BQ phone to see how they will move forward. But what suprise me a lot is the fact that they are 300 people working on Ubuntu Phone and only 100 on Sailfish. So, I guess Sailfish people are very good :)

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5

To be honest, I've had Jolla from the very beginning and it wasn't usable at all when it was released. It has matured enough only recently and is in a pretty good shape now. These were just my thoughts about that 300 vs 100 people thing :) The Bq has some issues, but I think it's far more usable than Jolla was back then. But then again, it has to be.

SuperPhone ( 2015-04-02 13:25:19 +0200 )edit

Thanks for the great comparison. I could only try out the Ubuntu phone shortly, so your comment is a nice overview. Amazing that we have the choice between such devices, instead of only iOS and Android ;-)

molan ( 2015-04-10 14:02:02 +0200 )edit

I also like the hardware design of the BQ phone. But Ubuntu Touch feels far more immature than Sailfish felt on the first phone release. Slow application start, no way to use twitter in a comfortable way (imho). I have received two system updates so far, but I could not see any advancing in functionality there.

I have the BQ as a backup phone and see what the future might hold...

hwesselmann ( 2015-05-18 14:51:30 +0200 )edit

I have Jolla as the backup phone :)

SuperPhone ( 2015-05-19 00:47:20 +0200 )edit

@mousse04 interesting experience but the fact that the jolla phone a really old device should be kept in mind....

cemoi71 ( 2015-07-21 20:19:08 +0200 )edit
7

answered 2015-04-01 22:58:39 +0200

kneilson gravatar image

I'm running Ubuntu 15.04 (r1), which is a developer version on my old Nexus 4 and I have to say, it's pretty slick. I wouldn't say that it's necessarily any better than Sailfish, it's just different...I like both, but there's work to be done on both in order for them to stand up against the established players in the mobile OS space. Time will tell who wins the race!

If there was a Sailfish version for the Nexus 4, I suspect that it would blow Ubuntu out of the water from a performance perspective.

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Comments

2

Personally I find Ubuntu more interesting due to desktop Ubuntu. There are Windows Phone and Windows, OS X and iOS, Android and ChromeOS while Sailfish sails more or less alone.

SuperPhone ( 2015-04-02 00:47:48 +0200 )edit

@kneilson Actually there is Sailfish OS for the Nexus 4. Look here xda

taaem ( 2015-04-02 14:35:42 +0200 )edit

@Taaeem That's great, thanks! I will give it a go on the Nexus 4

kneilson ( 2015-04-02 21:36:18 +0200 )edit
1

Of course Sailfish is fast, because it doesn't do anything. It's just an application launcher like iPhone. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

SuperPhone ( 2015-04-02 22:09:32 +0200 )edit
3

answered 2015-05-17 18:17:51 +0200

pisco gravatar image

Many of the the folks that are interested in the alternatives to Andoid and iOS especially want to have an mobile OS providing better privacy. So if you compare Sailfish and Ubuntu Phone I think privacy is a very important distinguishing mark.

I like Ubuntus attitude towards privacy much better https://together.jolla.com/question/9670/api-security-model/?answer=44017#post-id-44017 SailfishOS is limping far behind. I'm still using an N9, for by now I do not see much of an advantage in in buying one of the said phones that are already available. I can't see why Sailfish would be a gain in privacy. The Aquaris on the other hand is too low a hardware to endure it for several years (think alone of the camera).

I am now closely watching the news about the Meizu MX4. A developer version being available, the consumer version might not be too far before my N9 fades away.

By the way, does anybody already know if it will be possible to replace Sailfish on the tablet by Ubuntu touch or a desktop variant as e.g. Lubuntu?

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As I see it, the Ubuntu-Touch method is to not trust applications and limit access to user data. This is basically same as the Android trust model; applications are not trusted and user needs to grant applications various rights.

In theory it's OK, but in practice user has to grant the access or the application just won't start. That leads to the situation that users will just grant access to applications without questioning the reason, just like on Android.

juiceme ( 2015-05-17 19:29:33 +0200 )edit
1

1) I assume the average Jolla or Ubuntu user does not behave like the average Android or iOS user.

2) Android uses a all or nothing approach. Ubuntu does not.

3) If you think of Androids app opps, I use it on my cyanogenmod tablet and I like it. To set permissions to 'ask every time' is the way to lern to know your apps. For example I once installed Jitsi and the moment it started up it wanted to access the camera. No way! I deleted it right away and installed Lumiphone, which behaves decently.

I do not look for an inferior alternative, but for an even better one. Ubuntu seems to deliver it right now, whereas Jolla is only intending to do something, not shure what exactly.

pisco ( 2015-05-17 20:12:43 +0200 )edit

Hm...though I stick with my Jolla, Ubuntu sounds interesting for my multiboot N9... is it able to cope with that HW?

Edit: aaaand what about the "bad behaviours" Ubuntu had (e.g. the direct Amazon data mining and proprietary app policy)?

Lutwolf ( 2015-05-17 20:15:14 +0200 )edit

Ah so you prefer to go with a solution from a provider which is known to "sell" your data by default to some 3rd parties (amazon) all because you deem the current security model on Jolla insufficient? Privacy and security are related but different things...

Philippe De Swert ( 2015-05-18 12:41:19 +0200 )edit

Claims about selling data to Amazon are complete rubbish. You can turn the Amazon search off if that bothers you that much. What is this data they are "selling" in the first place? My user name? Oh, god!

SuperPhone ( 2015-05-19 00:40:05 +0200 )edit
2

answered 2015-04-10 13:59:19 +0200

molan gravatar image

I agree with what you write (even though I'm happy with the way Sailfish OS works) and like the Ubuntu touch UI as well. But Sailfish OS 2.0 will improve/simplify the UI a lot and brings it closer to what we were used from MeeGo Harmattan. Peek will still be available, but only for one gesture (check notifications and other apps within a running app). Since SFOS 2.0 is so different to the current version, it certainly will be interesting to compare those user interfaces in the near future :-)

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2

Best thing is QML . If there are QML + OpenGL games written for Ubuntu , they can easily be ported to Sailfish os.

pavi ( 2015-04-11 11:44:08 +0200 )edit
2

answered 2015-05-19 00:06:17 +0200

aclex gravatar image

Above all for me is that Ubuntu Phone, just like Ubuntu desktop, is open source (perhaps, except drivers) and share parts of Ubuntu ecosystem. Without all those strange marketing declaration, promises, justifications etc. about openness and "not right now" we all hear again and again from lovely Jolla.

I bought my Jolla just because its openness, but it turned out... well, lie. Still this thing is very important for me, so Ubuntu Phone looks quite attractive.

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1

Yes, Meizu MX4 with Ubuntu got just released in China (EU and USA soon) and also Bq Aquarius is really nice. If you like Jolla you will like also those.

SuperPhone ( 2015-05-19 00:43:43 +0200 )edit
1

answered 2015-04-03 23:47:46 +0200

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This post is a wiki. Anyone with karma >75 is welcome to improve it.

updated 2015-04-03 23:47:46 +0200

Jose101192 gravatar image

I use a translator sorry, but this answer is with my english in my opinión, the ui of Sailfish is best and more beautiful that Ubuntu. Ubuntu need more optimization (for example the bq aquaris have a quadcore processor) Cannonical must explain with more details the concept of scopes ( for example, we can install a scope of one web page, yes we can, but the scope not shows all information of the web page if we want view all information we needed go to the web browser or App.) then why install a scope of web page? the most interesting scopes are nearby, today, videos, music , photos, apps , news because this scopes have totally integration with the system and with the applications YouTube,facebook, twitter,gallery, soundcloud and more. for my these scope are necessaries and have a great integration with the apps ( for example the scope of videos shows the videos of the menory, YouTube, dalymotion and vimeo this is very cool, the scope of music shows your music in your phone, soundcloud, maybe spotify and dezeer with the possibility of play music this is very nice). but canonical must limit the scopes and letting the aforementioned. Ubuntu is a great system but in my opinión Sailfish is best (TOH and ui is wonderfull). cheers

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1

answered 2015-04-08 10:32:46 +0200

kaktux gravatar image

I would be interested in the "usual" business features in Ubuntu Phone.

Is vpn possible? What about email and calendar functions compared to the quite "simple" jolla ones?

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Well, regarding the Ubuntu calendar: it currently doesn't allow any sync at all, compared to Sailfish OS, where at least various kinds of sync can be done (more or less buggy, depending on the server side, but well...).

For email a third party app like "Dekko" needs to be installed. It is ok, but still has some issues, too. Just checked the features again: it has some more features regarding mail ist views, letting one quickly toggle between all, unread and flagged mails. It seemingly also shows user avatars next to the mail senders. There seem to be frequent updates to this app...

I don't know about VPN though.

Alex-S ( 2015-04-08 11:48:01 +0200 )edit
3

In term of business aspect, Ubuntu is totally rubbish.

Calendar is only available via google sync. No email app :( except Dekko which doesn't support exchange... so ...

mousse04 ( 2015-04-08 12:28:38 +0200 )edit

Define "business". I'm using the Bq as my only phone now and I work as a software engineer. Then again, our company doesn't use anything from MS.

SuperPhone ( 2015-04-15 01:34:20 +0200 )edit
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answered 2015-05-19 00:20:18 +0200

domino4evers gravatar image

I'm not a fan off Ubuntu - Ubuntu is turning into Windows / Facebook / Twitter with their Canonical - selling our personal information to 3rd party companies.

Ubuntu is not a true Gnu/Linux distribution...

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What personal information? My Ubuntu installation only knows my user name.

SuperPhone ( 2015-05-19 00:35:14 +0200 )edit

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Asked: 2015-04-01 20:55:27 +0200

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Last updated: Jul 21 '15