C2 h/w specs are not great, do not expect SFOS improvements to hide that. I know it’s early days but there is no comparison C2 vs xiii.
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(Would be nice if you link to the source of the communication you mention.)
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If the hardware wouldn’t be fit at all, it wouldn’t be in our hands today. It was tested, of course, in early stages. Just not with SFOS 5. Of course, it’s a moderate device but it would be also unrealistic to think of it as a very poor and nevertheless selected as a community device. Once SFOS 5 matures, it’ll be okay I guess.
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If the hardware is not sufficient then it shouldn’t be classed as a reference device, my understanding is this phone should be everything Jolla has identified to be required for a phone run Sailfish exactly as it’s programmed to be. Of course not right now, but the effort should be to optimise every single bit out of it.
Would be a pretty large reputation damage if the premise was not true.
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@pmelas
What’s the base of your expection about the hardware spec’s? An announcement from Jolla? Thanks if you have you a link for me.
@econdebachs
“be classed as a reference device”
I can remember me on “a reference device for developing”. When the SDK for SFOS 5 is out I will test it. For now the C2 looks fine for developing.
see the last Community news from last week: Sailfish Community News, 24th October 2024 - Shipping. In the text the current SFOS 5 version is called “RC2”, just a candidate:
Sailfish 5.0 release has been on CBeta for two weeks. In practise, there’s a second release candidate (RC2) available and this 5.0.0.21 looks like the first update candidate for the Jolla C2 devices. Rolling out to the early access subscribers would likely happen with third release candidate – let’s see how it goes but this is the current thinking.
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I agree on the difference of specifications. But that does not mean the C2 will not run as expected on a daily basis. It is clear that SFOS5 is a major refactoring of the software. Those familiar to such processes can understand what it means and what it looks like, most of the times, in the beginning. It’s a prototype, in many ways ! Those who are not familiar with the term and the work around it, are right in their way to think differently. But they can at least give a good read of the early announcement/s of the device, for example : Jolla C2 Community Phone deliveries and think of it as a food-preparation-process that is not in the very beginning but surely not ready to serve.
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I think these first “versions” should not be considered as RCs. They are just in-between development phases. A release candidate should have at minimum :
- Working phone : calling and receiving calls with any G (2, 3/3.5, 4 and 5 which the phone unfortunately doesn’t have :-|)
- Functional messaging : sending and receiving SMSes
- Functional internet connection : WiFi (2.4GHz or/and 5GHz) + Mobile internet
- Basic native applications + some basic Android applications (like another internet browser for example)
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Even better, if it’s the reference device for development all the effort should be to improve the system to demonstrate what can be achieved with it, is not just a toy, is a showcase.
I can see the C2 being the device Jolla takes to shows, to try to get customers and corporate contracts, it’s gotta be bulletproof at some point to get any credibility.
Of course my comment is only in hindsight - and does not help with the currently sent out devices. I was alluding to the fact that recently, since Android 11 I think, there is no separate recovery partition and there’s a turning point in the boot image init code that initializes either normal boot or recovery boot. That is now just disabled in hybris boot, if I understand this correctly.
With the current state of C2 / Unisoc, not being able to enter fastboot mode as an user, triggering that boot recovery codepath (and implementing it) at init time could have helped.
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Some more observations from playing around with the C2:
Performance is really just mediocre.
GPS is a bit volatile, sometimes better, sometimes worse than the Xperia 10 III.
Cameras, well, for me the camera in the phone was always for “notes” or to share something quickly. For serious photography, I lug around a DSLR, one or more more lenses and a flash, if needed. Still, some remarks, because I tested it a bit.
Resolution:
In general, a fraction of the specs, but I failed to find distinct specs for each camera .
Main camera: 16 Mpixel 4:3, 12 Mpixel 16:9 (specs says 64)
Wide angle: 8 Mpixel 4:3, 2 Mpixel 16:9 (Full HD) (spec says 16?)
Macro camera: 2 MPixel 4:3, 1 Mpixel 16:9 (spec says ???)
Front camera: 4 MPixel 4:3, 2 Mpixel 16:9 (spec says 8?)
I doubt more resolution would help the main camera.
In general, I wouldn’t use 16:9 due to the heavy loss of resolution for everything but the main camera.
Front camera is very wide angle, this seems to be normal nowadays, similar with Xperia 10 III, 10 IV, X, Samsung S24 and Samsung A5 (never used it 
)
Main camera: I sat on my couch, taking a picture against the window, with an off white couch and some colored pillows, during daylight, with overcast outside.
This was a quick and dirty test to see how well the camera and sensor handles contrast, the curtains somehow test for resolution.
The main camera of the C2 is clearly lacking contrast and image details compared to Xperia 10 III (both Android and Sailfish OS, Android clearly getting a bit more out of the camera), Xperia 10 V (Android, WORSE than the 10 III), Samsung S24 and Samsung A5. I could not compare with the Xperia X (main camera is not working on both devices for some reason) and the Intex/C1 (From memory, its camera is worse), the Jolla 1 is clearly worse (no wonder, is is just old).
Wide angle camera: clearly not software corrected for distortion, there is very heavy barrel distortion at the edges of the image, definitely not suitable for architecture without post processing.
Macro: Nice toy, but clearly not a replacement for the situations you take out your macro lens or some other optical aid to decipher the print on a microchip. The flash won’t help to much with the macro lens due to uneven light distribution at close distance.
Low light: In general, the camera seems to deal well with barely lit environment, auto focus was good. If the camera doesn’t activate the flashlight for auto focus, It won’t use it for the picture either.
I didn’t compare the noise of the images with my DSLR.
Flash and the supplied bumper cover: Avoid at all cost! If you use the flash whilst the bumper cover supplied by Jolla is on the phone, the transparent plastic of the cover will spread part of the flashlight into the lens, and the result is just plain bad, especially in the top left or left part of the image.
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Incoming phonecalls don’t seem to show on C2. Operator saunalahti(so network => Elisa). I can make outgoing calls without issues but today my wife was called after I “didn’t answer” so we tried and the call notification never reached my device even though her phone did the normal calling sound.
Go to settings, mobile network, and change network mode to 3G or 2G, you should be able to receive calls too.
an update is expected to fix that as well as volte calls support.
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Be sure to make a ticket in Zendesk.
After 3/4 days use of C2 :
Screen is definitively too big or my hands are to small. 
The sound is rather weak, even from a loudspeak.
The bumper is of poor quality and the plastic around the power button is sharp.
The absence of a footprint sensor is a real shame. I got used to it to quickly unlock my XA2.
the absence of a predictive keyboard makes writing e-mail and SMS a laborious task.
the screen display is wrong truncated with the front camera.
the network is rather unstable and the wifi/4G switchover is sometimes complicated
Browser crash sometime randomly like on SFOS 4.6 but more website are correctly displayed.
Today the battery drained in a few hours without me noticing and without any notification, so the phone was not available when I wanted to use it to make a call.
The C2 is not much more responsive than my 6-year-old XA2.
White balance is not the same in the different camera modes, lot of noise on pictures, distortions,…
Comme sur tous les smartphone Jolla l’appareil photo est juste ici comme preuve technique et en aucun cas pour la qualité.
Missing “The Other Half” interface support for J1 nostalogic guys and no double tap power-on.
Despite the efforts and determination to develop an alternative to GAFAM, it’s hard to see how difficult it is to stay in the race. Objectively speaking, there’s not much new on this C2 that wasn’t on the J1 11 years ago:
- Here Map’s - isappeared a few years ago - or a usable GPS
- No prediction
- Weather
- The Other Half (and the Keyboard)
- No NFC
- …
Sailfish works well enough to give us hope that an alternative is possible (even if on the C2 it’s still a long way off).
But those of us who have supported you since the J1 are well aware of the difficulties, and know that we’ll have to wait a long time and make do with features that lag behind the rest of the market.
The C2 is more of a developer/beta tester device than an everyday smartphone.
I switch back to XA2 on SFOS 4.6 for everyday smartphone until next updates and devices.
Good luck and stay the course captain and sailors.
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Wait, you could unlock phone with your foot this whole time? I didn’t knew! xD
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A footprint sensor behind the display. Seems reasonable, given the phone’s size
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Oh I would love to have a bigger screen!
I wish you all good luck with fixing the C2’s bugs but am very confident that it will reach a fine state at the end.
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Unfortunately, it is a disappoitmnet, so far. I haven’t used Jolla since SFOS 3. I hade some hope on this, that it might be usable as only driver. But as described above there are several drawbacks.
it’s very laggy, which I find disturbing - hard to believe it’s 8 G of RAM in it. Camera is really poor, but one advantage is that my Unihertz Titan Slim appears to have a really good camera - quality is far ahead really. Lack of fingerprint sensor and no way to use face recognition is really unbelievable - how could they opt this out, it is 2024!? Finally, the size — it’s a monster!
The remaining problems discribed by many I hope will be fixed over time. I will hang on a year to see, but umfortunately, the C2 will be a second driver, more to play with than to use.
I’d say the speaker goes loud enough, but it can’t reproduce any lower frequencies, so the sound is always very tinny, like you’re hearing it playing from a cardboard box in another room. Basically, a cheapo speaker. Also, in contrast to the Xperia 10 series, only the bottom speaker is used for media playback, and in addition to that, like on the original Jolla Phone, one of the two speaker grilles on the bottom is fake.
For those who’ve used the original Jolla Phone, the speaker is extremely similar, just louder.
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