Jolla as only phone [not relevant]

I do appreciate the OS, that's why I'm looking at Jolla. I'm just worried about the hardware in the Jolla phone (actually I'm most worried about the battery - that it's not great, but most of all that replacements are very difficult to obtain). I will most likely end up with a Sailfish OS phone, I'm just trying to understand if the Jolla phone is it.

If I understand things correctly, the phone is a proof-of-concept.

Be lucky if you manage two days with moderate use. So if you use it with some daily web browsing some media playing, messaging, android apps. The battery is sucked dry after just a few hours. I'm not complaining, just saying what it is.

I have to strongly disagree. I use it as you describe (moderate use) and it lasts 2 days easily. But of course I turn of data and wifi when I don't need it. So either you are traveling a lot with data/wifi turned on, or you have some app on your phone draining your battery, you should check. @redblack, what do you call "basic connectivity"?

To answer about the hardware reliability, it's difficult to say. The hardware hasn't the best quality and many have got hardware problem. Personally, after 1.5 years and no issue, I'm starting to have the issue with the vibrator which get stuck sometimes. But I intend to keep it also at least 3 years.

@Larswad: Fair question about buying a smartphone if my main use case is working with dumb phone functionality. I'm only interested in the smartphone functionality if I'm on holiday abroad or in an airport, and so on. And I'd like to be able to take an occasional picture when I don't have my camera. Also, I'd like to occasionally be able to read ebooks. But most of the time, SMS and regular calls only.

Basically I'm only interested in smartphone functionality if I'm not near a proper computer or at least a tablet, which most of the time I am.

@Sthocs: By basic connectivity I mean just being able to make and answer calls and send texts: no WiFi, no packet data, nothing else.

@Larswad: Yes, paid Jolla Care if out of warranty. That would be reasonable for everyone, but I'm not sure that's available at the moment.

@Sthocs: I use Situations to turn off WLAN and Bluetooth when I get outside of home. At home it turns them back on.

What definitely draws battery is the native browser. It just might be that what takes, but nevertheless, one should be able to use a native browser without killing the battery that quick.

If could only use the phone with some longer battery time (maybe up to two days) after only a few of the first Sailfish OS releases. Now its just hopeless. I have not made a clean install of the phone for a few releases back, so it might be one reason if something "dirty" is running in the OS. But, running htop with a delay of one minute between updates doesn't reveal any bad behaving processes or daemons.

It might be the battery itself that starts to drop in efficiency as well. And...well, we know about the thing with getting a new battery, its hopeless.

@redblack: Ok then I know what you meant. The small repair-shops that you can find around most cities, taking care of very common issues like battery and screen replacement, easy repairs. They are like the TV-repair shops of the old days. They handle repairs to a reasonable price if they can buy spare parts and that I guess only if such parts are hugely available (which is something I doubt about Jolla). But if we talk about Jolla Care itself, I am not sure if they would take on a self-paid repair job. Probably not, they want you to buy a new Jolla which probably then would be just as cheap (or expensive if you'd like to call it that).

Well, I don't know that since I don't own a Jolla phone and so I've never been able to test that for myself. :) From what I've read, some people have claimed that it makes a measurable difference (I think some even put tin foil in the other half to prevent the reader from being able to do anything about the chip). But yes, I think some security researchers (EDIT: found the link) took the phone apart and discovered that the actual reading of the chip was a one-time deal when some button was pressed when inserting the other half. Then again, like I said, I obviously haven't had a chance to see for myself.

Anyway, what I was trying to say was that, even if the battery life is not great by default, I wouldn't mind going deep to disable things I don't need if that improves it significantly. The NFC service was just an example.

Now I get where you are coming from... yeah there was a bug in tohd in the early months, but that was fixed long ago. I'd not be worried much about anything... it is a pretty cheap phone with a very good OS in my opinion. (Just had to get something going on a OnePlus, even cyanogen makes me want to throw it against the wall...) Yes there are downsides to a new company but how will they improve without supporting them. If you rather like to wait for another maybe big manufacturer with SFOS, there is a new SFOS manufacturer deal to be announced this summer. But actually I feel confident that Jolla will bring another device in the future, just not as frequent as the usual big phone manufacturers do.

@chemist: I love the ideology behind Jolla and Sailfish. Its the thing that is needed in the cell phone industry with the stiff competition out there with only the large closed, evil, customer hating super-companies like Microkia, Apple, Google and Samsung.

The FOSS and community behind Sailfish is also something I believe is great.

But it doesn't mean that we, as a community, must agree with everything the Jolla do, or what priorities they set. Jolla has stated themselves that we as a community is a great part of their evolution and life, therefore not only positive criticism is useful to them.

I think they still have a lot of important improvements to make on the phone, the first Jolla. I feel the tablet and "other stuff" has overshadowed the development of the phone the last months. My biggest concerns is their information sharing (which Cybette over and over said was something they would improve), their priorities with fixing bugs and usability issues over putting in new features and not the least, fixing the accessory availability problems and the paid apps possibility in store.

We got the roadmap published lately, what more do you need? For sure Jolla understood by now that after JollaTablet they need to concentrate on the user-experience (a lot). Tablet and Phone are the two required hardware platforms Jolla needed to have a proof of concept device of their own, while IVI would be the next major step, I doubt Jolla will go that path any time soon, so what will be the next priority task? If they listen we will see usability improvements requested Dec13... as that makes the OS even more attractive to manufacturers than the beautiful UI, but don't forget, the rework of the events-view is already one of those UX improvements we are waiting for, browser got lot of rework already (as it is FOSS with community support too) - so step by step they open up and work together with the community to make a better UX. Looking top down, where was naked android 2 years after the first device? And that is powered by a MM$ company...! Knowing early android you know why people paid 800eur for an iPhone rather than buying a 400eur android... looking at SFOS that way, even with yet limited UX, I'd rather buy a SFOS for 500eur than either other option for 200eur (including FF, Tizen, Ubuntu, Cyanogen, maybe even BB but a Passport for 200eur would be tempting at that point)!

Charging it overnight is not a problem, I just thought that the 5-days without a charge requirement is a nice, clean-cut way of talking about battery performance. Just going on mAh doesn't tell you very much, since it all depends on how the OS uses the battery, and when entering Internet and apps usage into the equation things get even harder to talk about. Thanks for the answer!

Well, the display thing (that others have mentioned as well) does not bother me at all, since that's the way I tend to set my phone up anyway to make the battery last. Maybe I'm settling for less than the best, but I have no problem moving over a few meters to use the phone where there's a bit of shade.

As for the music player hanging when I browse the web, that will likely never happen, mostly because I care about my music and I doubt that the Jolla has a good DAC (what DAC does it use, does anybody know?), so I wouldn't be using it for listening to music anyway.

But random freezes do worry me.

Random freezes may be due to btrfs getting out of free space to allocate. In that case you may have to run a balance operation to sort it out. Search TJC and you will learn all about it, and since you are a Unix engineer you won't have a problem doing that yourself! I also had random freezes, once I freed some space and ran btrfs-balance my phone is good as new :)

@thisisme Fair enough, thanks for the tip!

Thanks for the answer. Well, people _have_ raised the issue on this very forum, sometimes very vocally and in no uncertain terms. I won't link those threads since that's not the point (and it can even turn the discussion unhelpful, which is certainly not my intent). I am perfectly aware that this is a new technology, and that is why I believe the question is legitimate: with something this young, asking the same question 6 months later might get a completely different response. I also believe that raising these issues can, and should, help Jolla anticipate its customers needs (if they care about selling phones, of course).

I'm glad you're happy with your Jolla. Your and @lakutalo's answers make me want to pick one up. Then again, @Larswad thinks things could be improved, so I suppose that warrants the question.

You're totally right about it warranting a question. I'm not going to lie, the speed with which the battery drains itself in use was kind of a surprise for me too and not on the pleasant side. But comparing to everything else gained when switching to Jolla it is something I'm personally ready to live with.

Then again, I phone very little and use my Jolla as a pocket-sized computer more than anything else, so our personal needs may be pretty much the opposite and you may come to different conclusion than me. The battery certainly isn't the strong point of the device, and if it is a specifically important point then it may not be such a viable choice for you personally.

I'm certainly not going to start arguing about anyone's deal breaker issues, after I threw my own Lumia out partly because of the standard Calendar app wasn't to my liking and I wasn't going shell money for 2,5 euro apps to make the phone a tad bit more usable.

I have seen many products appear and grow with and without my initiation and cooperation, but it's always a joy being a part of its evolvement. Therefore I love Jolla, not for the perfection but for what it is going to be, mostly for what it already is - independent and (almost) open.

@lakutalo I understand and commend your reasons for being a part of the Jolla experience. I also appreciate diversity and am not a fan of monopolies. But I guess my stance at this point is (and I think there are many people like me): all things being equal, I'd like to get the best non-mainstream phone that fits my needs. This is simply because I don't really care much at all about phones - let's say a new, innovative company starts working on a very special new kitchen utensil: if you only cook once a month it becomes more important to get something that will last for years than to support said company with money and free testing. Even though, have you been passionate about cooking, you'd almost be morally compelled to support them. That's simply because unfortunately we have limited resources (at least I do) and we just can't support everything that deserves to be supported. In my case, I'd rather support a smaller luthier or company like Nash or Collings instead of buying guitars from the big guys, Fender or Gibson. But then I don't have a lot of money left for phones.

Now, I also understand and respect the pressure they're working under and the state of the software, so I don't ask for that much. All I want is this (and for some reason it's this untangible Holy Grail for all smartphone makers): a smartphone that is as reliable, and has a similar battery life, as a good dumb phone when used exclusively as a dumb phone. Please note, without any loaded apps, extra Android bells and whistles, WiFi, etc - airplane mode. Is that a lot to ask?

@teemu Thanks, even the fact that the battery might be problematic is not the main issue, the only problem with the battery is that it's impossible to get another one if the one in your phone dies after a while, and there are no certified 3rd party vendors. I could even live with a quickly draining (within reason) battery if I could replace it (and Jolla specs say quite clearly that the battery is replaceable - except you can't find one). As far as I can tell, somebody at some point got a battery from another manufacturer to work but has been warned that it might damage the phone and that was that.

I could even live with the fact that _at_the_moment_ there are no extra batteries available. But apparently batteries only turned up for a day, were quickly sold out and were never heard of again, with no mention by Jolla about future availability.