Hasta La Gadget!

Jolla’s self-titled and first smartphone launched in partnership with Finnish carrier DNA this week, with a few hundred handsets finding their way to early pre-orderers. Today, a couple of familiar faces from the company stopped off in London to let us play with the final hardware and get to grips with Jolla’s Sailfish OS, which is based somewhat on Nokia’s old MeeGo platform. If you caught our tour of the Jolla prototype earlier this year then you’ve got a good idea of what the handset looks like. In fact, the only differences we can see aesthetically are slightly smaller bezels above and below the screen, and that the rear camera has moved from right flank to center stage. Internally, the core specs are: A 1.4GHz dual-core Snapdragon 400 (MSM8930), 1GB of RAM, 16GB of storage space (expandable), a 4.5-inch, 960×540 (qHD) IPS LCD display, an 8-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel shooter on the front. We only had a few hours to probe Jolla’s first device, but head past the break for our initial impressions.%Gallery-slideshow124244%

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Say hello to the Jolla Phone. Pre-orders for the world’s first Sailfish OS device started today and we’ve called into Helsinki to get the whole story from Jolla’s co-founder and software head Marc Dillon. While we know there’s a 4.5-inch “high definition” screen (resolution TBC), dual-core processor and 8-megapixel camera, we were kept at arms length during our meeting with an early prototype. So, unfortunately, our full hands-on treatment will have to wait until later today. For now, Marc takes us through the thinking behind the hardware — and what the notion of the “other half” really means — right after the break.

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As Jolla gears up for the imminent unveiling of its first smartphone packing the MeeGo-inspired Sailfish OS, there’s been another shake-up at the highest level of the company. Marc Dillion will no longer be CEO as of May 6th, with a man by the name of Tomi Pienimäki taking over leadership of the company. He’s no stranger to Jolla — he’s an investor and his brother Sami is one of the company’s founders. Using nearly the same wording as when previous CEO Jussi Hurmola changed roles, Dillon will now be able to “fully concentrate on the development of Sailfish operating system” under his new title of Head of Software Development. Pienimäki’s record shows he’s all business, with experience in management, logistics, supply chains and driving growth — you know, all the fun stuff that keeps a company ticking. Following the handset reveal in May, Jolla expects to start a “pre-sales campaign” in the same month and have devices available for purchase during the second half of this year.

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Jolla launched its Sailfish SDK at MWC 2013 and we got the chance to chat with CEO Marc Dillon about the company’s history and find out how things have been coming along with Sailfish OS since our hands-on late last year. We also discussed the time frame for Jolla handsets (still on track for H2 2013) and what the Sailfish SDK brings to the table for developers today. You’ll find a full transcript of the interview along with our video after the break.

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Nokia N9 champions may be looking hopefully at Sailfish to revive their beloved MeeGo, but Jolla has reigned in those expectations by saying it won’t be officially supporting the device. Although the company won’t be responsible for updates or providing technical help, it claims there’s nothing but a voided warranty stopping the community from porting Sailfish to the abandoned handset. So, N9 owners, it’s up to you — if you want the MeeGo-based OS on your phone, you’ll need to do a bit of work for it.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Nokia

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Source: Jolla (Twitter)