My JP arrived just a couple of hours ago. Having been an early Pinephone buyer, I expected the experience to be somewhere along those lines - but man, was I wrong: Sailfish is absolutely daily driveable.
The Device
- Feels good in the hand - I almost want to use it without a case but knowing myself, that’s a bad idea
- No unnecessary ‘premium’ materials - and that’s a good thing: My Pixel 6 broke within it’s first week because the glass back would slide off of any surface
- I like the square-ness. Kind of reminds me of the OnePlus One
- I have big hands, but I still think that holding and using the phone would be much more comfortable if it wasn’t as big
- One-sided camerabumps are annoying. I actually like the direction Google went with the ‘bar’ at the back: Yes, it’s a raised surface but it’s stable when laying on a table.
SailfishOS
I am still getting used to the navigation - some things that stood out to be so far:
- Apps are fullscreen - I haven’t yet found a way to quickly glance at a clock while being in an app
- Swiping down from the top right closes the current application. That’s not bad, but Android has taught me to access quick settings that way - coupled with the point above, this has lead to a couple of accidental app closures
- I like the decluttered design philosophy - but I sometimes find myself hunting for information that could have been highlighted a bit
- Apps that aren’t running don’t show push notifications. Again, not a problem, just a different way of thinking about things
- Sorting the ‘App Drawer’ by install date might make sense to some, but I wish there was an option to have it alphabetical with folders on top