alt Hacker NewsJolla phone – a full-stack European alternative
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HN discussion from four months ago, including reports from people who have been using Jolla phones for some time (e.g., me):
Nokia N900 was really great, Jolla has some of the former team people.
I only jumped into Android after my Symbian phone died, and by then Symbian Belle, with QT and PIPS (PIPS Is POSIX on Symbian OS), it was already shapping great.
That Burning Memo was really a downer.
> User configurable physical Privacy Switch - turn off your microphone, bluetooth, Android apps, or whatever you wish
The "whatever you wish" seems to indicate that this is a regular switch that can be configured to turn off certain functionality. Is that true?
I was hoping for a solution that physically disconnects the microphone/cameras/etc, or at least acts at some lower level than the OS. But if it's flexible and configurable then it sadly doesn't look as secure.
What does full-stack mean here? Phone is fully produced in Europe? Software and online storage fully provided by European company?
edit: I want this phone, I have reserved a slot in the coming batch.
Just posing as an average Joe here, someone who does not host their own storage, calendar, contacts, phone tracking, remote wipe, the "free" features Google and Apple are known for on their phones.
The most important question missing from the FAQ is whether bank apps, government ID apps, etc. will work with this phone.
Just an FYI... I don't know what their service is like but they won't respond to my emails asking for a refund so, tomorrow I have to contact my CC provider now. Not happy :-(
They have 10,000 preorders and will be in Mobile World Congress
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anttisaarnio_just-incredible-...
Reduce it to the size of iPhone 5 and make the main camera flush with the surface, and I'll buy it in a heartbeat.
I don't understand how the physical privacy switch can also be user configurable. Wouldn't configurability mean it's a software privacy switch?
What does it mean it's "governed by European privacy". Isn't Europe who wants to prevent privacy with things like Chat Control?
That definitely seems to be the better alternative amongst all others. While I appreciate all the energy put into graphene or lineage it appears to me like way too much energy for Half baked solutions. Depending on google good will in the future too. I can understand them as hack, not that much as industrial proposals.
I noticed that the orders hasn't bumped up that much since this was shared last time. Not really sure I see the growth here is showing a lot of demand for a European smartphone - although I could totally be wrong given the geopolitical situation.
> 8GB RAM, you can upgrade your RAM to 12GB with 50€
Possibly the best per storage RAM price on the market right now!
I invested in this. I am quite sick of the attitudes of some of the big american phone players.
This is coming from someone who has for the longest time been invested in Apple and the Apple Ecosystem. I adored the ease of integration of everything. The amazing synergy between their designers, and their engineers. I never really minded that things came later to the Apple Ecosystem. It just worked. And it was great.
But the golden statue, the absolute pathetic DMA attitude from Apple. It started to get to me. And I am trying to now get out of that Apple Ecosystem.
I don't think it'll be smooth. I think the process will be painful as I try to work around some of the limitations. No NFC payments will be my biggest painpoint as an ADHD addled man who forgets his wallet at least 3x a week. But it's worth trying. And it's worth supporting alternatives.
As far as I'm concerned, that's the only phone related announcement that matters this week. That and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47214645
I'm deeply saddened that they didn't add a 3.5mm audio/headphone jack.
There was a community poll and I believe a headphone jack was the second-most requested feature after a MicroSD slot.
I appreciate they have to draw a line under the feature set somewhere, however the cost of an audio jack is literal pennies and I'm quite sure the PCB designers could have squeezed it in somewhere.
As someone who has no interest in wireless accessories it makes me unwilling to buy the phone.
Anyone use the Jolla C2? Seems pretty interesting (not fully European though)
Great initiative but too big. Give me a 3.5" phone, under 100g with 2 weeks battery life, and we're in business!
Oh the joy, of being able to back it up with restic, integrate my email, text and script based workflows, and have total control of the ports and software that runs on the device. That would be amazing!
74mm width is too big to hold it comfortable in one hand or put in pocket. I find mobile devices above 71mm width unpractical for daily use.
What's the sandboxing & app permissions story like on Sailfish OS? Is it just ordinary Linux, i.e. apps can basically do anything?
Well done, congratulations. My next phone will certainly be European to the root. Will be nice to come preinstalled with some free European (apps, socials and video hosting, like Vivaldi browser, HugstonOne local AI, Protonmail, Libreoffice, w-social, vimeo, mastodon, lemmy etc.
Jolla has announced a new phone using its Sailfish OS so providing a full-stack European alternative to the Android/Apple duopoly.
I would strongly advise do not spend any money on Jolla devices. Check their history of Tablet and other preorder products?
I bought the pre-order thing, but not sure what to expect - I guess to get an email at some point so I can buy it..
Some people said it's using libhybris. I thought this one was vanilla Linux. Any pointers either way?
What's the difference between this and the Fairphone?
I want to believe! I remember the Palm Pre and webOS, maybe this is the next big thing.
Hmm, die deutsche Version der Seite ist nicht anderes - vielleicht ein Bug?
I hate the camera bump trend. I don’t need a super fancy camera, just give me something half decent and flush with the device.
The original iPhone SE was the last time I enjoyed a phone’s design.
This looks really cool. Orange, black and white being inspired by scandinavian design felt like a bit of a reach though.
This project has been going for years. Good to see it lives on.
IMO there's a paradox with these privacy-focused mobile solutions. Just as with the expensive flagship corporate devices, the massive price tags suggest an assumption that we are doing all our computing on mobile. That's now the case for most normies. But for anyone who really cares about their privacy (not to mention sanity), there's a better solution available: repatriate most of one's computing to a laptop. At which point all these mobile devices become unjustifiably expensive. Hence the paradox.
PS: downvoting a reasoned opinion, apart from being lazy and toxic in any community, does not constitute a rebuttal.
I heard and read negative things about them, do they actually ship?
No headphone jack?
We need this, an alternative to Apple and Google.
I guess this is a descendent of my 16 year old Nokia N900, and probably the best phone I had. It ran the Maemo operating system, and its UI was a forerunner to a lot of what is current. It also had a built in, full, terminal.
News release:
The world premiere of the European Phone
https://jolla.com/content/uploads/2026/03/Jolla_Phone_PressR...
I mean 600+ euros is kind of a steep price, doubt I'll ever consider buying one because of that alone.
Also, as an italian, Jolla reminds me a lot of the word "Ciolla", which you can only guess what it's a slang for. That doesn't help.
>99 € down payment — deducted from final price, fully refundable
Uhhhh… so why isn’t that final price stated, even provisionally?
I mean, if it’s going to be a 300€ phone, imma gonna bite. But if it’s going to be a 500+€ phone, I am going to want to know ahead of time. I don’t like surprises where cost is concerned. Leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.
huge notch and huge bottom bezel with mediocre Mediatek Dimensity 7100, all this for 650EUR with specs worse than 200EUR phones, that's like 450EUR for software, a bit high surcharge...
This looks interesting. https://e.foundation/e-os/
> a full-stack European alternative
It is absolutely not. More than misleading title.
People are jumping on this "EU sovereignty" thing band-wagon and milking it for all it's worth.
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if it doesn't run GNOME Mobile or KDE it isn't an alternative
This is the third phone on the HN main page. I’m happy to see this flurry of work at real competition in the market, but I hope the companies can survive and respond to CSVEs.
Other comments have links to more details, but in short: do not support this company.
It was to be expected that a lot of corps will want to milk the term "EU sovereignty" and good willed naive people who don't look inside the packaging.
I've been using Jolla/Sailfish since the first launch, totally love it.
Apropos of the fact that nobody ever shows the actual OS, I did do a video showing the actual OS, if anyone wants to see it being used.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pMfezSulhw
To me this is way ahead of iOS/Android, the native browser sucks, and it requires some massaging to get everything running smoothly, but the UX is second to none. That fact well supported by how many features have been copied by Apple/Google over the years.