Finland based mobile startup, Jolla, has unveiled its first smartphone that runs on the Sailfish OS which has been developed in-house by the company.
It's not clear if the company has announced a name for the phone but it's using the term "The Other Half," derived from the phone's removable back that comes in different colours, and changing the cover also changes the phone's look and feel inline with its colour. The phone is priced at 399 Euros.
The phone features a 4.5-inch display and will be powered by a dual-core processor. It will sport an 8-megapixel camera with auto-focus and will offer 16GB of internal storage expandable via microSD card. The phone is "Android app compliant" which indicates that it will be capable of running Android apps though it's not clear at this stage if it will directly support them or require developers to port them similar to how they work with BlackBerry 10. The phone will also feature 4G LTE connectivity.
As we mentioned, the phone runs the gesture-based Sailfish OS which is based on MeeGo which received acclaim when it launched on Nokia's N9 smartphone. However, Nokia abandoned MeeGo and chose Windows Phone as the future OS platform for its smartphones, following which a group of employees of Nokia's MeeGo unit left the company to start Jolla and work on their own smartphone.
Jolla targets to ship the smartphone by end of 2013 and has introduced a Kickstarter-like 'Movement' in which people can participate by pre-ordering the phone. This will also be used by the company to gauge the response to its offering so that it can decide if there is demand for it. One can opt for a zero-cost pre-order option to reserve the phone when it launches, or pay 40 Euros for a limited edition phone and a t-shirt along with assured priority status. One can also pay 100 Euros and get all the goodies along with an extra back cover and 100 Euros off on the total price.
The number of countries where the phone will be shipped will be disclosed later and the 399 Euros price only includes VAT in Europe, so shipping costs, local taxes and duties will be extra.
More details will be revealed by the company later in the day when it officially announces the phone.
Mobiles launched in May 2013