Jolla smartphone goes from hype to hardware, sells for $513

Jolla’s here. From rumours to Jolla Oy’s first ever smartphone, the ex-Nokia N9 team (made up of Finnish “directors and core professionals”) have come a long way indeed. And for €399, the Jolla can be yours when it’s eventually released Q4 2013.

Its main draw (besides it being a non-Nokia, Samsung, BlackBerry or iPhone) is that it runs Sailfish OS, the successor to Meego, the lightweight mobile operating system last seen running Nokia’s N9. Why the Meego-based Sailfish UI though? Jussi Hurmola, one of Jolla’s founders, says it’s about introducing something brand new. “UI is a major thing and one of the reasons we selected MeeGo. With Android we can only copy — but with MeeGo we can introduce something brand new to the market.”

Something brand new?

For roughly US$520, are we getting a phone worth this considerable investment? The Jolla comes with a 4.5-inch Estrade display, 16GB internal memory and microUSB, an 8MP autofocus camera, a dual core CPU with 4G internet access, a replaceable battery and is “Android app compliment.” No word on what the CPU is or which apps will run on Jolla, but the processor needs to be at least 1.5Ghz to compete.

Pre-order Jolla here (you’ll need to sign up with the site first) to be one of the only people in your lift club to own the worlds first/last Meego/Sailfish phone. Here’s our issue, and let’s call it the HTC-One effect. The phone has been announced now, but will only become available at the end of the year. Can Jolla push the phone enough to ensure that it’s still market-relevant come Q4 2013? HTC has suffered a lot recently, with its sales plummeting in the recent quarter – which may or may not have anything to do with the HTC One shipment delays.

An interesting hardware addition are the coloured shells known as “The Other Half”. Click on of these shells into place and not only will the Jolla change physical colour, but the software as well. It’s not yet known how this will effect the Jolla, but we have got a tagline that explains it even less, if that helps. “Magically, the software changes to match your selected colour and design. Your Ambience. Your Jolla.”