I’m new to Sailfish OS and am looking to buy a device for tinkering and maybe transitioning to daily use. I’m considering either the Jolla C2 or building the community port for the Sony Xperia 1 IV (GitHub - sailfishos-sony-nagara/main: Documentation, releases, and issues). I can get the phones for similar prices. Although I’m new to SFOS, I am very proficient with Linux and Android, including contributing to custom Android firmware development and some Nokia N9 hacking back in the day, so I would be more than happy to build and use a community port.
The benefits of the C2 are supporting Jolla and getting a new in box device, but the Xperia 1 IV is significantly more powerful hardware and has more features. I suppose the C2 also has AppSupport, but I am not mainly planning on running Android apps and if I do want to, Waydroid should cover my needs.
After using Sony phones, I bought C2 and it feels like a brick, very heavy and big. It remains in a desk drawer unused. I think same problem is nowadays in many other phones.
It’s okay if like big and heavy phones. Performance is not the best in the c2, but it’s not that expensive.
In your case I guess the sony would be good. Much more power full. As long as you don’t need Android stuff for daily use. An oneplus 6 could cover your needs maybe too.
Maybe @pbramberg can explain himself again. I think he looks for a community sailfish phone whether C2 to support Jolla, or a sony xperia x1 IV to support them developer. He wants to help building community ports more then to use a quite perfect phone like xperia 10 III.
It depends a lot what you prefer to hold in your hand.
If you want a turd in your hand, get a Jolla C2.
If you want a piece of jewelry in your hand, get an Xperia 1 IV.
It also depends what you want to do with the phone.
If you want to feel like using a phone without a fingerprint sensor, like it’s 2015, get a Jolla C2.
If you want to feel like using a phone in 2025 (assuming the fingerprint sensor works on that Sailfish OS port), get an Xperia 1 IV.
Of course, it also depends on what sort of support you want.
If you want official Jolla support, get a Jolla C2.
If you want community support (I can’t imagine it being much worse than Jolla’s support), get an Xperia 1 IV.
If you want to support Jolla, you could just buy some licenses.
3 yearly licenses of 50€ should be about the same amount of money they make from the Jolla C2 hardware and they don’t even have to bother with the logistics of shipping it to you, processing the almost inevitable return that will follow because the Jolla C2 is not just a turd, but a turd with very bad quality control, sending it to Turkey to be fixed or replaced, etc.
It highly depends on which kind of answer the thread starter wants…
you are giving a crappy, sarcastic one with over the top wording, very polarized and non-neutral / bad attitude if you ask me…
I’ll try to give a better one:
the Sony Xperia 10 III is one of the best options with one of the best official SFOS supports while being performance vise pretty nice with SFOS too. I can recommend it (used for a long time now, still very capable), so it is harder to buy by these days.
the Sony Xperia 1 IV as well as the Xperia 5 series is not officially support by Jolla but may have an unofficial port available (5 series has already, 1 I am not sure about). This means you do not get official Android App Support (or at least at the moment only with another officially supported SFOS phone from where you can extract it, which is not supported nor recommended by Jolla neighter). You can go the Waydroid route if you want to, but AAS is superior in some aspects. Be aware, that these are both flagship or highend phones, which might cost a lot more. Other problem with this approach is, that you might get stuck on the version you have because the porter might just not do the device anymore any time without pre notice and you are even if s/he supports it, most often at least 1 version behind the official one. (this doesnt have to be bad and it can have advantages by itself, especially with a capable porter, but be aware of that)
the Sony Xperia 10 IV and 10 V are officially supported, but still have drawbacks and unsupported features. Might change, but to this point, for a newbee those are at least questionable phones to use if you ask me.
The C2 is performance vise behind all of the above and round about between a 10 II and 10 III. There are two bigger drawbacks: Fingerprint reader missing (same as face recognition, etc.) which is a bummer… I agree that it is pretty annoying to use PIN all the time, but if you are fine with it you can use it (some just do not want to use biometrics for different kind of reasons) and the native video camera can not record videos. (for me the show stopper, but you can use Android camera apps to overcome this if necessary – since I want to use as small amount of Android apps as possible, especially stuff that holds personal data in it as possible, this is bad for me)
C2 does NOT feel bad in any way in your hand. It actually is using pretty pleasant materials and if you like a big form factor and can live with the biometric draw back, it is fine or hopefully will be fine soon when video camera support (photo works) is added in natively.
If I would have to give you a list what to buy at the moment for SFOS (be aware of the drawbacks for each phone from the above… this list is like that very subjective!):
Sony Xperia 10 III (good performance, good support, nice form factor)
C2 (good enough but worse than 10 III performance for SFOS, camera problem + no biometric support currently)
Sony Xperia 10 II (just too old, very good support, but if you can get a 10 III, get that)
Sony Xperia 10 IV (good to very good performance but bad support. With better support it will go up easily in this list – so it depends what Jolla does with it)
Sony Xperia 10 V (very good perfomance but bad support, with better support: Will go up easily in this list.)
Sony Xperia 5 V (excellent performance but “no”/no official support)
Sony Xperia 1 V (best perfomance but “no”/no official support and pretty expensive)
If you are looking for a pre-installed SFOS phone, have a look at J-D Store / Jolla devices… they have the 10 III & II available (https://buy.jolla-devices.com/) and the C2 can be bought from Jolla directly (https://shop.jolla.com/)
All other phones have to be bought separately and you should have a look at the compatibility list before buying so you get the right version. (Supported Devices | Sailfish OS Documentation)
