Hi there,
Time for a Jolla Phone update.
And it is booting up! As of late last week we got very first functional samples (we call it “CNC sample”) completed with the real mechanics, electronics, the SoC, modem, user-replaceable battery and everything together.
Very quickly from there we organised a two-day hackday in Tampere to pull it together, and happy to note that as a result we got it now booting up to the beautiful Sailfish UI! Wow!
Technical update
Let’s clarify some technical bits that have remained open for now:
- The SoC is Mediatek Dimensity 7100 (MT6858). Booting up the Sailfish OS on it and having the initial UX feeling in our hands - oh boy it is fast! It will be the greatest Sailfish OS UX thus far and won’t be shy in comparison to popular Android devices
- For the memory, we chose to go with a single-chip LPDDR4X RAM + UFS2.2 storage. While the memory prices are rallying like crazy, we managed to secure the initial batch with a purchase in end of January. The memory chips are made by Korean SK Hynix.
- USB-C video out. Fitting this in is unlikely for now.
- eSIM support was discussed in the recent FOSDEM Sailfish BoF and has been requested in the forum. While we don’t have it in the initial spec, we’re exploring the feasibility of eSIM to the current HW configuration and ways to enable it somehow down the road later. A normal solution requires eSIM specific IC in the HW configuration (requiring extra space again, even tho small but still very tight inside there!) but there also solutions where such IC is embedded inside a physical nanoSIM (!) - anyway, exploring the feasibility here and no promises!
- High Brightness Mode (HBM) of the display, e.g. for outdoor use. While we have not done the final display module tunings and testing yet – we just booted up this week for the first time
, the module should support HBM. We will confirm this on due course. - As for the water resistance the product will cope in minimum with water dripping/drops. We will confirm IP-rating later once we conclude durability tests.
While we do follow the forum chats with utmost care, we may have missed some of the technical questions raised. Let’s use this thread to try clarify those, if any, to the extent possible for now. One such item is e.g. the supported Bluetooth codecs, for which we don’t have an answer yet - need to come back to that a bit later.
The Other Half
Let’s make it! The questionnaire has got very high attention and lots of discussion, innovation and ideas flourishing. It has given lots confidence also for us to think which TOH modules we could productize ourselves for a justified business case, and also plenty of room for interested community members to explore and make (and sell!) some modules themselves.
We’re happy to conclude it will make it to the product 
We aim to release the full specification during Q1/26 but as a sneak peak:
- 7 pogo pins as follows
- 5V_OUT (Phone → TOH)
- GND
- I3C_SCL (3.3 V logic, level-shifted from SoC 1.8 V)
- I3C_SDA (3.3 V logic, level-shifted from SoC 1.8 V)
- ID (resistor ladder → ADC on phone side)
- INT (accessory → phone interrupt / wake line)
- 5V_IN (TOH → Phone) - Similar to wireless charger input
- The order of the pins will be finalized later, but currently those are planned to be in two columns, of 3 and 4 pins, as shown in above picture.
- It will be using I3C in SDR mode, having theoretical maximum speed of 12.5Mbit/s. This is something we start verifying in next 1-2 months.
- Full CAD pictures will be made available to enable 3D printing etc. experimenting
The program schedule
From now on, it is fairly straightforward to estimate the upcoming program schedule towards the shipments of the first batch:
- February: CNC device samples, lights on, wake up the modem, battery management
- March: start final payments collection, next round of of the PCBA, first samples with the real tooling (T1)
- April - May: development, tunings, testing, hacking, bug squashing
- May - June: antenna tuning and band verification, roadshow
- end of June: mass production and shipping of the first batch
Let’s keep it coming and hack on! 
( Added few pictures )
Edit: As we finally got some time to focus on the photos, here is a few more! Enjoy 
