We haven’t heard a ton of Jolla news lately, and of the little bit that has come out, it hasn’t been great. That’s changing today, as Jolla has announced a brand new smartphone.
The Jolla C is a new Sailfish OS-powered smartphone from the Finnish firm. It comes with a pure build of Sailfish OS 2.0, which means that there are no third-party apps installed. The OS is compatible with Android apps, so if you can’t find what you’re looking for in Jolla’s app catalog, you can get some from Google’s.
In terms of specs, the Jolla C is packing a 5-inch 1280x720 display, 8-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, 2-megapixel front-facing shooter, 16GB of storage, and a microSD card slot. It’s powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 212 processor, 2GB of RAM, and a user-replaceable 2500mAh battery. This dual-SIM smartphone also includes support for 4G LTE. Also of note is that Jolla says because the C is a "community device," it's being sold as is and without any warranties.
While the Jolla C certainly isn’t the most powerful smartphone around, it is a step up from the original Jolla smartphone, which had a 4.5-inch 960x540 display, dual-core processor, and 1GB of RAM. The Jolla C’s price tag also reflects its spec list, set at just €169 ($184 USD).
The Jolla C is set to begin shipping in July 2016, but most of us won’t actually get one. That’s because not only is the Jolla C only shipping to Norway and Switzerland, but it’s only available to 1,000 people that’ve enrolled in the Sailfish Community Device Program, a group that’s aimed at people that want to help advocate and develop for Jolla’s Sailfish. And unsurprisingly, all 1,000 Jolla C units have already been purchased.
Jolla has had a bit of a rough stretch lately that included layoffs and some setbacks that resulted in it being unable to ship all of the Jolla Tablet orders from its Indiegogo campaign. The company is sticking around for its hardcore fans, though, and there’s at least 1,000 of them that care enough about Sailfish to plop down €169 for a new smartphone. It’s unclear what Jolla’s future holds, but for now, both it and its fans have some new hardware in their lives.
