Engineers who used to work for Nokia are hoping to grab a share of the lucrative and highly competitive smartphone market with a new handset, which is based on the former world No. 1 mobile phone maker’s old software and is faintly reminiscent of its recent models.

The Jolla handset’s Sailfish platform has been developed from the MeeGo operating software, Nokia’s last open-source platform which it abandoned in 2011 when it switched over to using Microsoft’s Windows system.



Finland-based Jolla was founded by ex-Nokia engineers in 2011 and will this week begin selling an eponymous smartphone for around €399 (£333). Just 450 units were available at a launch event in Finland last night, destined for those who placed early pre-orders.

But, unlike Nokia’s phones, Jolla is also compatible with more than 85,000 apps provided by Google’s Android, the popular and dominant operating system that has helped Samsung overtake the former Finnish bellwether to be the world’s largest mobile phone maker.

The Jolla has a 4.5in display with multi-touch and rugged Gorilla 2 Glass. On the back you get an eight megapixel camera with an LED flash, and on the front a two megapixel sensor for video chats.
Jolla claims talk-time of up to ten hours over 3G or 4G LTE, and there is a 1.4GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage which can be boosted via a microSD card slot.

Marc Dillon, head of Jolla software and one of four founders of the company in 2011, spent 11 years working for Nokia after moving from the United States. He says Jolla’s open operating system gives it an edge over rivals.

“We are providing a world-class choice … that is an alternative for consumers that can be very agile and powerful,” Dillon said in an interview in a Helsinki office block previously occupied by Nokia employees before it laid off thousands. “For our operating system business we have a huge opportunity because there is currently one choice really available to every global mobile manufacturer and that’s Android.”

One of the most glaring omissions from the shipping software is LTE support. The hardware’s inside the phone — along with Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC, both of which are functional — but Jolla hasn’t been able to get the software support done in time.

Jolla has prompted lots of interest in Finland, which was fiercely proud of Nokia as one of its largest companies


http://oshadami.com/2013/12/ex-nokia-engineers-launch-new-jolla-smartphone/