I saw the campaign today and I guess some Sailors might be interested in a new phone with several Linux OS possibilities away from Android (Ubuntu, Sailfish, etc.).
You can find the campaign here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/volla/volla-phone-22-the-beauty-of-freedom
If there would be an official Sailfish port…
Yeah, if there were any guarantees I would back it. Without them it is hard to choose it when there is Pinephone (Pro) that is already proven, Fairphone 4 and Xperias with official support.
What guarantees do you mean? Sailfish runs on the old Volla phones already.
And there is official support from Fairphone for Sailfish?
That sadly means nothing, gemini-pda has official sfos port and their next device cosmo has a broken 3.2.1 port if you can call it that as hardly anything works, the company does not release the android source needed for porting and their porter left for ubuntu touch so the people that went with ‘gemini has great port lets buy cosmo’ are left with junk
Basically, I want to use Sailfish. And right now there is Volla Phone 1 and Pine Phone, which have decent support, but are weak at this point, PinePhone Pro which is being worked on by Piggz, but we can’t know when or if it gets fully working, then we have Volla 22 which should have good SFOS support but we can’t know for sure, and then we have Fair Phone 4 which is the nicest phone out of all of them but with really low chances of ever getting a port…
So the only solution we have left for a good SFOS phones are official Xperia 10s, but even then the X10 III port is nowhere to be seen.
Helio G85, 2 years old low end CPU. USB 2.0. Quite basic camera. 210 grams. No 5G.
There is quite similar Chinese brands for cheaper and available right now.
Quite similar to this 1-year old phone: Realme C25s - Full phone specifications
I don’t get what’s so attractive about Volla Phones. It’s just as generic as many Chinese low-end brands, but sold by a German startup.
In comparison, Xperia 10x line is cheaper, better build quality, better camera and processor, lighter, 5G, etc.
I have the Volla22 and will be porting Sailfish to it.
Nice! Think there is any chance of an official SailfishOS port?
Yes, the company is aweful. They release devices, claiming support for everything, but in their sense it means: “the community has to develop a port, we provide nothing”
In reality there was one (!) dev that did all the Gemian work.
No android rom, no aosp rom, not even reflashable, nothing.
We just need to tip piggz, the quality of his work is close (if not better) to official ports anyways…
I am very strongly considering purchasing a Volla, as it costs about the same as a new Xperia 10 III in my country. But yeah, I am very worried about Android app support on it…
I bought also a (used) Volla phone (not this new one, but an old model) a few weeks ago, additional to my Xperia 10. Running SFOS 4.4, and to be honest it runs a lot better than the Sony X10. So my question is, If I pay the licence fee to Jolla, can I then download and install Alien Dalvik aka Android support from the Jolla shop?
Definitely not officially. I heard of people doing that, but since Waydroid appeared noone talked about it anymore.
My husband had the GigasetGS290 with /e/, which is the same hardware as the Vollaphone. Three days battery life, poor sound, camera not great. There was something wrong with the mobile functioning. Now he is back on Sailfish after having had Jolla 1 and an iphone, now on an XA2 that I kept in a drawer. I still am on an XA2+, waiting for the 10 III to be implemented.
The Gigaset GS290 is assembled in Bocholt, Germany. Actually the only phone made in Europe. You can letting them replace the battery. What a pity that they don’t make devices with better specs.
Oh, interesting! Do you know if you know if OS made for Volla works on Gigaset?
Maybe it could be possible with Gigaset GS5 and Volla 22, where you can probably get Gigaset cheaper?
The Vollaphone is a GigasetGS290 with Volla OS.
I don’t know if the other models made by Giga are unlockable too. Anyone?
Yes it does.
i ve used sfos on volla and gs290
volla seems to be a.rebranded.gs290 plus vollaos
I bought a GS290s for 100 Euros. New. At 3.4 they were feature parity with offical ports. There have been some regressions since 4.x but… The Volla ‘brand’, puts emphasis on the ‘Made in Germay’ angle, which has some (assembled in Germany is certainly of significance) ‘meaning’. For my part, even if I don’t like the result, the effort they put into the project is worth supporting. In the same sense as supporting jolla.
I agree with you and I would even go further: European companies could coöperate more in order to bring a good device and an elegant OS on the market and not competing each other with half baked products. More sustainable too. Fairphone is on the tight track, but personally I don’t like the design of the hardware and I can’t port another OS on it. . Gigaset GS5 would be a good starting point I think, with a replaceable battery. Gigasets are sturdy enough for long term use, while Sony’s devices are elegant but not so sturdy.
Hoping for official support of the Gigaset GS5 by Jolla.
I also like the size of that device more than the new Sony’s with their strange ratio.