I bought my pre-order voucher just recently.
And I’m really happy that this new Jolla Phone ticks almost all of my boxes:
- 2 hardware SIM slots + 1 separate (non-shared) microSDXC slot: Yesss!!!
This is why I still use my Xperia XA2 Plus as a daily driver. Hopefully not long anymore.
Now, if at least one of the SIM slots also supports e-SIM-capable hardware SIMs and such modules can be configured/programmed natively from within Sailfish OS, I would be in heaven. - RGB indication LED: This!!
Had my first contact with such notification LEDs through the Nokia N900 and can’t live without them anymore. - Fingerprint reader: Splendid!
Although I think that having this sensor built into the display instead of the power key does provide much more potential for an innovative UX. For example: Users can place various icons on the lock screen. Dragging one of these icons with a registered finger onto the fingerprint reader area will immediately trigger the respective action after the fingerprint has been verified. These actions can include things such as: Toggling flight mode, arming your credit card for payment via NFC (only active while the registered finger is kept on the sensor area; if the user lifts their finger or drags the icon away, the action is aborted immediately), recording a voice message while the finger is on the sensor (and optionally send this message to a predefined contact when the user lifts their finger; if the user drags the icon away instead: abort without saving or sending anything), and so on. - Privacy switch: Nice, regardless if it’s a real hardware kill switch or not!
However, I strongly think that the movement direction of this switch should be perpendicular to the housing, not parallel, to lower the risk of unintentionally operating the switch when you pull the phone out of your pocket or put it back into your pocket. - User-replaceable battery: Much appreciated!
I just hope that this will not negatively influence the phone’s weather resilience. I’m not talking about fully submerging the device in water, I’m just talking about sweaty hands, rainy or foggy days, coming back home from cold weather (condensation), and so on.
Some thoughts on the other specs of the phone:
- Display:
Displays with notches IMHO just don’t fit the design philosophy of Sailfish OS. I know that a patch is available to blank out the notched display area, but still. Moreover, aren’t displays without any notch cheaper than displays with notch? And wouldn’t a thicker top bezel (which I’d gladly accept to have a notch-free experience) make room for one or both of the following 2 features? - No, not a 3.5mm audio jack
, but a second USB-C port, which supports “Audio Adapter Accessory Mode”:
In said mode, the DAC inside the phone is used and the analog signals are output through specific pins on the USB-C port for directly connecting any “non-intelligent” headphones. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C#Audio_Adapter_Accessory_Mode. So no external DACs are needed at all.
And because it is a compliant USB-C port, users can for example charge their phone with a standard charger through port 1, while accessing a USB flash drive through port 2 at the same time - without the need of any external hubs. Or use high-end headphones which bring their own DAC. - A LED flash also for the front (selfie) camera:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I haven’t seen any other phone or tablet with such a feature so far. This could really be one of the things - among others (see above) - which set the Jolla Phone apart from the rest. Using the display as a lightsource for taking selfies - as many other phones do - does give a less harsh light due to the much bigger radiation area, but at a much lower brightness however. - 4G and 5G bands:
As long as the Jolla Phone also supports plenty of bands which are used in far-east Asia, I’m happy. - Bluetooth:
Many Samsung phones with Android are able to send audio to 2 separate Bluetooth sinks at the same time. These can be totally different models from totally different manufacturers. While this is a really cool feature, the Samsung implementation has 2 major flaws: First, it does not offer any latency adjustment, which means that you cannot use 2 Bluetooth speakers to play music at a bigger venue. It’s therefore only feasible for headphones. And second, you cannot split the left and right audio channels between both speakers to get true Stereo sound by placing the speakers away from each other. So, can the new Jolla Phone do better here?
At the moment, it looks like the magic threshold of 10,000 vouchers will be reached by the end of February, to bring back “The Other Half”. I hope that this weekend’s FOSDEM acts as a great booster. For those who are interested, I posted my own TOH wishes here.