Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts

Wednesday 28 October 2015

[video] Jolla Tablet review: Hardware, UI

Part 2: Jolla Tablet hardware quality and Sailfish OS 2.0 user interface 

After more than a hundred replies to the question on the desired focus of our Jolla Tablet review, I decided to split the rest for nice length. This part 2 focuses on the hardware quality and introduces the basic interface and the pre-installed apps on a first time booted Sailfish OS 2.0.0.10.

I did pass the tutorial app with a little trick...

Thursday 15 October 2015

The First Jolla Tablet unboxing

Jolla Tablet Unboxing (includes LastuCase)

Chung Hoi Ching, customer in Hong Kong, received her Jolla Tablet already on October 8th. She was one of the lucky very early birds placing her perk on the Indiegogo campaign already during the very first minutes.

Few more are arriving to different countries between October 9-15th. While the rest of the tablets are once again postponed, here's a photo show on what the lucky ones are receiving in just few days:

Wednesday 23 September 2015

[Test Review] Jolla Tablet Case by Dirk van Leersum

Wood, stone and... carbon fiber!

We received this prototype of Jolla Tablet carbon fiber casing by Dirk van Leersum, and we put it into some serious test with Jaakko Roppola and a prototype of Jolla Tablet.

We were after a simple answer: Does the case really protect Jolla Tablet, and especially the 7.85" display on it?

Friday 11 September 2015

First impression on Sailfish OS 1.1.9.28

Guest post: Sailfish OS user experience by Janne Tamming

I start this topic introducing my experience with Jolla phone shortly. This will help you Review Jolla blog readers get better picture how I see things using Jolla phone daily, and how i see the brand new Sailfish OS (1.1.9.28 Eineheminlampi) on it.

Monday 7 September 2015

Jolla Phone and Koor Wood skins

DIY project - Sleep Catcher case, and few other options for Jolla Phone

My wife saw Koor Wood skins for smartphones and she couldn't resist them. Luckily, this manufacturer has notified Jolla Phone as well. But still, she wanted to have a full case too to keep her Jolla safe, so we ended up with this DIY project. Looking forward to see what else Jolla fans might come up with these skins.

Thursday 3 September 2015

Test: compatible batteries for Jolla Phone

New official Jolla battery vs 2 new "compatible" batteries

and 2 used ones to add to the comparison. This post does not only share my test results, but hopefully also guides you in the sail for compatible spare battery for Jolla Phone. Unfortunately I didn't run into one 100% compatible yet - but on the other hand, even a new official Jolla battery failed on one test. There are also related safety issues, so please read before starting your own tests.

Saturday 14 February 2015

TOH Keyboard for Jolla phone - demo video

QWERTY Keyboard coming up for Jolla phone in few months

On last October, an interesting community project started - TOHKBD was launched on Kickstarter

The crowdfunding was a great success with goal reached in 7 hours and in the end, more than 1100 pieces pre-ordered. Now it's time for an update, check the latest photos and video:

Wednesday 3 December 2014

Mid-term review - Open Source situation of Sailfish OS


What's opened after 1 year, Jolla? 

A year has passed, and we all know that Jolla has set Open Sourcing of Sailfish OS as their goal already before that time. Let's check where Jolla stands with OSS after a year:

UPDATE, February 3, 2015: Sailfish OS is currently a non-OSS operating system, and earlier mentioned goal towards Open Source is, at this point, missing

Friday 31 October 2014

Covering Jolla for a lady - looking for options

Lastucase, Insmat case or something else?

My daughter is using Note 3, and I'd really love to see cases like she has also available for Jolla phone. Let's take a quick look at the current options, and add this one I'd love to get for my wife's Jolla too. 

Tuesday 28 October 2014

QWERTY Keyboard Other Half for Jolla

KBD TOH - Project launch

Nokia N900 had this - and now it's going to be available on Finnish smartphone Jolla.

Project is soon live at kickstarter.com, announced by the designer Dirk van Leersum today. Follow up - by joining the project, you might be among the first ones to receive one. Price is speculated to be above 100€

Monday 27 October 2014

Solar Other Half - Does it charge your Jolla

Test and Review: 
SolarTOH from Funky OtherHalf

This community build by Dirk van Leersum enables recharging of Jolla phone with solar panel. I've tested it in a weather of Finland in the end of October, Let's see how it performs.

Update: New recharge chart added

Thursday 4 September 2014

Hi, I'm Joe - Guess why I bought a Jolla phone?


1000 Unlike Jolla reviews and one Mean Joe

Jolla phone owners have sent 1000 user reviews with the form shared by Review Jolla, Jolla Tides, and Jolla Users.

Now what happens if we put these unlike users together. Who's the Mean Joe?

This story combines the statistics of the first user reviews posted by Jolla's customers. Reviews are not all from unique source, users are encouraged to post new report after each system update.

Image from Ethel Hardings big old photo album.

Thursday 7 August 2014

webCat, Sailfish browser for Jolla Smartphone supporting landscape

Leszek Lesner has coded an alternative webCat browser for Jolla. It's a native SailfishOS browser, and it's available for download either at github, openrepos or at Jolla Store.

Update: Version 0.9.7 released on August 6, 2014 includes some great new features like search on page

Tuesday 22 July 2014

Your Review of Jolla phone - Doing It Together

The most reliable Jolla Phone Review from every day users.

Check what others think and add your own review of the phone, operating system Sailfish OS and applications provided by Jolla. This takes 2-3 minutes of your time, and your opinion is valuable for many. Doing It Together, please contribute!

Thursday 17 July 2014

Jolla apps: Top Sailfish OS music and radio apps

Image: 9 Music Apps multidriving on Jolla phone's home screen


After system update 1.0.8.19 Tahkalampi Sailfish OS powered Jolla phone has become quite a jukebox. Here we take a look into top 10  music apps in the native Sailfish OS side (all available), a couple of interesting projects (possibly available soon), and just for the comparison and information I'll add Spotify and Simple mp3 from Android side along to this article.

Get to know the apps that suits best for your musical taste!

Thursday 3 July 2014

Jolla phone specs - detailed hardware specs

Full hardware specs of Jolla phone

1. Key factors against competitors. How does Jolla differentiate?
2. Jolla Hardware specs with extended details + user comments
3. [videos] The Other Half including hardware - community projects
4. Reviews elsewhere

Updated August 10, 2014

Monday 9 June 2014

[TechSpecs] Android on Jolla phone

[TechSpecs] Android 4.1.2 system info on Jolla phone

The topic isn't exactly right - Jolla uses Alien Dalvik running on top of the Sailfish OS as a virtual machine. It's an Android Open Sorce Project (AOSP) by Myriad - not the full Android OS by Google.

Thursday 13 February 2014

Jolla Phone Review 2015

Full product review by Simo Ruoho
Updated: March 22, 2015

Intro: What is a Jolla Smartphone?
1. The looks and feel - outside Jolla
2. Screen / Display
3. The Hardware - inside Jolla
4. The native Software
5. Gesture based Sailfish OS UI
6. The content of the box
7. Some other, minor notes
8. The best and the worst
9. Value for the money, overall score
10. Images
11. Read also

Sunday 2 February 2014

Jolla phone review: Sailfish OS User Interface

Image: home screen of Jolla smartphone after 1.0.3.8 update. Latest update brought landscape use also to the native browser. Covers shown are: Android launcher screen with a Meego theme (top left), native Sailfish browser (top right), Terminal (bottom left) and Webcat Browser (bottom right). Favourite app icons (right) doesn't support landscape mode yet.

Sailfish OS 1.0.3.8 Naamankajärvi: This article introduces the latest Sailfish Operating system on Jolla smartphone, released by Jolla 31-Jan-2014. Article includes a review to the User Interface and couple of most used pre-installed apps, extended with all gestures used on Jolla smartphone. Article was published just a couple of days after 1.0.3.8 was out (short time experience).

Contents:

  1. How does Sailfish differentiate?
  2. Sailfish OS (Beta?)
  3. Gesture based user interface
  4. Moving around - 20 gestures storyline (review to the UI)
    - Included: Sailfish UI screens, Messages app, People app
  5. Available gestures - Lock screen
  6. Available gestures - Home screen
  7. Available gestures - Launcher screen
  8. Available gestures - Notifications screen
  9. Available gestures - Messaging app, 2nd screen
  10. Available gestures - People app, 1st screen
  11. Available gestures - People app, 2nd screen
(read also: Jolla smartphone - Detailed hardware specs) updated after 1.0.3.8
(read also: Newsletter from Jolla, released  6-Feb-2014)

1. Sailfish, the key factors against competitors

  • Sailfish OS, even at Beta stage, creates an unique, light and intuitive gesture based user interface. The phone doesn't need surface buttons (and it doesn't have any either).
  • Real multitasking with active covers (all running apps have an interactive thumbnail screen at the phone's home screen).
  • OpenSource policy of Jolla. According to CEO Pienimäki, Sailfish is planned to be shared to all Android users, and also to other device manufacturers. Additional to that, users can activate developer mode in their phone and access the Linux based operating system as a root user. No other phone offers this without rooting the phone first. Even more, after version 1.0.3.8 there is a new recovery menu enabling unlocking the bootloader of Jolla, giving developers a possibility to load other operating systems to Jolla smartphone.
  • Android support running as a virtual machine (VM) on top of Sailfish OS, Jolla carries "a phone in a phone", enabling running a lot of Android apps. The support is not 100%, but it's been better after each system update so far. At the moment Android already supports all sensors.
  • Unlike? Binding all the above together gives me an idea that we might really have something new and different. At least we have a new finnish company, a new smarth phone and a new operating system providing a new UI. How many of you remember the beginning of Nokia story? Will Jolla make another story to follow? Does Sailfish differentiate enough to gain a share of the market ruled by Google's Android (81% of all smartphones worldwide)?

2. Sailfish OS (Beta?)

Jolla phone is powered by Sailfish OS, a Linux based system developed by Jolla. Sailfish OS has a longer history, it's developed from Meego (used in Nokia N9) in cooperation with OpenSource MER project. Nokia dropped Meego and it's developing team when Nokia started to use Microsoft software. The team was still exited about developing Meego, they saw its potential. Knowing it wouldn't be further developed by Nokia, company Jolla Oy was founded, and developing if both the Jolla phone and the Sailfish OS have been going on since 2011. Jolla has been updating Sailfish OS all this time, new versions have been published monthly. Latests one, 1.0.3.8, was delivered to the customers 31-Jan-2014.

3. Gesture based user interface

In Jolla, there are no surface buttons and all interaction is based on gestures. This supports Jolla's idea of developing an OS which can be used in multiple devices, not only smartphones or tablets. In Jolla smartphone most of the gestures can be started from any location of the screen, fitting your hand too. The used gestures in Sailfish OS environment are:
  • Pull - Slow gesture for selecting options from Pulley menus, moving object and selecting text content.
  • Flick  - Fast pull for moving inside and between screens and opening pulley menus in total. This most used gesture seems very intuitive when using the phone
  • Swipe - A pull which begins from outside the display. Very useful and intuitive gesture:
    • Swipe up (starting below the bottom of the screen) opens notifications screen, where you can find the latest messages and interactions (Phone/SMS/FB/Twitter/available updates). Second swipe up closes the notification screen and bring you back to your previous screen.
    • Swipe down (starting from above teh top of the display) closes the foreground app, or if there is none, shuts the screen down and locks the phone.
    • Swipe left/right (starting outside the edge of the screen) drops the foreground app to the home screen, leaving it running as an active cover. Active covers are explained below.
  • Tap - The most common gesture in several smartphone models to select an item, take a photo etc. Less used in Sailfish, as moving between the screens doesn't require tapping.
  • Double tap - Used to wake up the phone when the screen is shut down, bringing user to the lock screen.
  • Pinch - Two finger gesture used mostly for zooming. Works in browser, camera, maps, viewing photos or documents
  • Short hold - e.g. to open a selection menu or select a whole word from text content
  • Long hold - e.g. to select a whole line from text content
  • more gestures (multi-finger) might be interoduced later
The phone is fully usable with these gestures and without touching any buttons (except for powering up / shutting down the phone). Power key and volume keys are the only buttons on Jolla. Volume button can be used to take a photo (an option to tap).

4. Moving around 

20 gestures story, introducing the most of the user interface

As told, using Sailfish is based on gestures. I find it best to describe the user interface with a storyline, describing the screens and optional gestures on the way. This is how the phone is used - the content and the gestures just can't be separated. Moving from screen to another happens via transparency, and pull & swipe gestures can also be used to just peek the next screen - sliding your finger back the view you were about to see disappears again. By the way, all this takes a while to learn, but Sailfish user interface is actually very intuitive. After getting used to Sailfish, other UI's feels a bit... inelegant? But now, let the journey begin. Each gesture used is numbered:

1. Double tap in anywhere of the blank screen wakes the phone up.I'm at lock screen, watching the time and some icons telling I have some new notifications. Now we must hurry... lock screen shuts down in 5 seconds.
2. Short pull down, starting from anywhere in the screen. I'm in a meeting, so I quicly silence my Jolla via a pulley menu. I could start a camera too from there.
3.-4. Swipe left and tap. I enter my favourite ambiences selection screen and change my ambience to one of my favourites. The background, text colors and different notification sounds ant the ringtone are changed. I'm back on the lock-screen.
5. Swipe up. I saw on the lock screen that I had received a message, so I opened my notifications screen.
6. Swipe up again. There were no important notifications at this time, so I didn't tap any. Instead, I just closed the screen, and this is just another way to enter home-screen from notifications.

At home-screen I can see my favourite app icons (4) on the bottom and active covers (max 9) for my running Sailfish apps. One shows the latest one of my running Android apps. Android apps are forced to share just a single active cover.

7.-9. Tap on one of my favourite apps, player, and two more taps there to start playing one of my albums, saved to the phone in mp3 format.
10. Swipe-left. I drop the app to the home-screen. It's now running in a small screen called "active cover", and there seems to be a couple of gestures attached to it too.
11. Pull-left on the player active cover. I change to the next song. Another option would be pause.
12. Flick-up. The most used gesture again, starting from anywhere on the screen. This way I quickly enter my launcher-screen. Changing between screens seems very responsive, scrolling is fast.

Suddenly the music fades out and a nice, soft sound tells me I've got another message. The music fades back in. I was just about to download some more music with an Android app, but now I decide to check the message:

13. Swipe-up, familiar gesture to enter notification-screen, available from about anywhere.

There it is - one new FB message. Next to an icon I can see the sender and the beginning of the message, and the time passed since when it was sent. Other things shown in the notification screen are e.g. system-messages and transfered files. There are also big icons to enter FB and Twitter in Sailfish browser view.

14. Tap on my friends message. It opens the Messages app, a pre-installed part of Sailfish OS.

SMS, FB, Google, and XMMP are all integrated into the Messages app on Sailfish OS. Actually I don't consider it as an app at all, more likely a part of the UI. It's most usually opened via an incoming message. Here we can see an important part of the Sailfish OS - opening an app might bring few circles to the top of the screen. They tell that the app has more screens, scrollable with flick-gesture, or optionally, tapping the circles. I always use the flick. A highlighted circle shows on which screen you are - at the moment, on the second screen of Messages App.

I read the message and decide to answer. However, a small grey line is showing that my friend isn't online at Facebook any more... But Sailfish offers another option:

15. Tap to open keyboard. Writing the answer...
16. Hold to change message type. Aa small green line shows that my friend is online at Google Talk.
17.-18. Tap to choose Google Talk, another tap to send

It took me six gestures (+writing) to open a facebook message and to answer it with a Google talk message. Not bad at all :) After sending, the message app stays open, looking forward if my friends answers.

19. Swipe left. I drop the app to the home screen. Music was playing all the time, and it's still playing nicely, cover showing the album image. Latest app "Messages" is opened to another active cover, showing my latest three activities with my contacts. Oh, and I'm back on the home screen again.

20. Tap on my most favourite app, People.

This best part of the UI is yet without introduction, and I saved it as the last. In the 1st screen (let me call it People search screen) I have a view to my favourite contacts, all recent messages and to the alphabets. Coloured line on top of the screen teels that there is also a pulley menu. So, here are all my contacts.

21. Pull down to open search. Fastest way to enter a contact card when you have several contacts.
22. Tap the name which was found (after writing a couple of letters). Now I'm in the contact card (People app, 2nd screen. After a minute, the screen was shut down and the phone was locked.

Oh, 22 already? This is so much fun I just can't stop going on. But now I do that.  With just 20 gestures, I managed to:
  • Wake up the phone
  • Enter favourite ambiences
    - changed ringtone + all other sounds
    - changed volume levels for the sounds
    - changed backround image + text colour
  • Enter notifications screen
    - Check my notifications 
  • Enter home screen
    - start Player app
    - select an album
    - start to play it
  • - get a new active cover (Player)
  • Return to home screen
    - change the next song
  • Enter launcher screen
    - nothing was done here...
  • Enter Notifications screen again
    - select an incoming message
  • Start Messaging app
    - answer to an FB message with a Google Talk message
    - get a second active cover (Messages)
  • Return to home screen, looking at two active covers.
I'm wondering how many gestures I would need with other phone models for all this... Could someone do all the above with an Android, and count the gestures (including key presses)? By the way, there's one lie included in my story. Jolla users: can you find it?

5. All available gestures, lock screen 

  • Pull down - select items from pulley menu. Fast access to Settings, Camera, Phone and Silence mode.
  • Flick down - open the whole pulley menu and choose items with a tap
  • Swipe left/right - to enter favourite ambiences screen
  • Swipe up - Open notifications-screen. Lock screen already shows if I have some. 
  • Swipe up and return - Just a quick peek to the notification-screen
  • Swipe down to shut down the screen (or I could just wait 5 seconds)
  • Pull/flick up - Direct way to enter home-screen

6. All available gestures, home screen

  • Tap active cover to open an already running app to full screen (foreground)
  • Tap a favourite app icon to open one of those
  • Flick or Pull left/right on top of any active cover to launch the varying cover activities
  • Pull down and return to peek the clock
  • Flick or Pull down to return to the lock-screen
  • Pull up to enter a launcher-screen, showing more of my apps
  • Swipe left/right to enter favourite ambiences-screen
  • Swipe down to shut the screen down
  • Swipe up to check my notifications
  • Hold to enter the home-screen edit mode, enabling closing apps from the covers or pulley menu.

7. Available gestures, launcher screen

  • Tap on any icon to open an app
  • Hold to enter launcher-screen edit mode. There, you can sort the icons or remove apps.
  • Flick/pull down to return to the home-screen
  • Flick/pull up to enter the next launceh screen (only when more than 28 apps installed)
  • Swipe down to shut the screen down and lock the phone
  • Swipe up to open notifications screen. (Yes, it's possible here too) 

8. Available gestures, notifications screen

  • Tap to open an app or browser (depends on the notification)
  • Pull or flick down to open Pulley menu: Set to away, Show and tune your presence (in different account), clear all or Update all
  • Swipe down/left/right to close notifications and return to home
  • Swipe up to close notifications and return to the previous screen
  • Swipes can also be done as peeks, transparent view shows where you are heading to

9. Available gestures, Messages app (2nd screen)

  • Flick right to move to the 1st screen (showing all your latest messages)
  • Flick left to show and edit the contact information of the person (3rd screen)
  • Tap on a text line to open virtual keyboard and write an answer
  • Tap on "change type" to select the way of sending your answer. By default, it's selected as the same service from where the message came from.
  • Hold on "change type", to do the previous after writing a message 

10. Available gestures, People app (1st screen)

  • Flick down to open a pulley menu: Search, Add contact
  • Pull down to direclty select from the pulley menu
  • Tap on a favourite to open contact screen (2nd screen)
  • Tap on a recent message does the same
  • Tap an a letter shows a list of your contacts, starting with that letter
  • Swipe left/right drops People to home'screen, showing your favourites as changing images
  • Swipe down closes the People app
  • Swipe up opens your notification screen (yes, from here too)

11. Available gestures, People app (2nd screen)

  • Flick down opens a pulley menu: Delete, Link, Share, Edit
  • Pull down, selectiong items from that menu
  • Pull up to scroll the information
  • Flick or pull right to return to the 1st screen (circles are visible)
  • Tap on image to change it
  • Tap on star to add/remove from favourites
  • Tap on contact informations to enable "Send..." (another tap to send)
  • Swipe up to enter / peek notifications screen
  • Swipe left/right to drop to home screen
  • Swipe dowm to close people app
  • FREE: Pull left might have a future action - not in use yet