Jolla To Release Sailfish Tablet
Finnish smartphone startup Jolla will soon enter the crowded tablet market with its Sailfish OS running on a 7.85-inch screen device. Jolla was founded in 2011 by a group of former Nokia employees, and the company started selling its first smartphone in November last year.
The announcement comes a day after Jolla's neighbor Nokia returned to the tablet market with the Android-based N1.
The tablet runs on the Linux-based Sailfish OS, which is centered around a start page that shows all running apps in a single view. Users can also control apps from the multitasking view - – for example, change music or play and pause a video stream without opening the app in full. Besides running its own native apps, the operating system can run Android apps and works with natural hand movements via gestures.
Through the Jolla Tablet, Sailfish OS evolves to its second generation - Sailfish OS 2.0 - which will power smartphones and tablets, and will feature Ambiences and Events.
Ambiences will make it easy for users to personalise their tablets. Events shows all user's messages, calendar events and other relevant info in a single view.
Jolla is asking for feedback from the Jolla community in order to get suggestions for new features for Sailfish OS.
The tablet supports Wi-Fi and has a 7.85-inch screen with a resolution of 2048 by 1536 pixels. At 330ppi, Jolla Tablet’s display will match the resolution of iPad Mini 3. It is powered by 1.8 GHz quad-core processor from Intel. There is 2GB of RAM and 32GB of integrated storage that can be expanded using the microSD card slot. The tablet also has a 5-megapixel camera on the back and a 2-megapixel front camera. It weighs 384 grams and is 8.3 millimeters thick.
The Jolla Tablet will start shipping during the second quarter next year, and it can be preordered via Jolla’s new Indiegogo campaign, which also launched on Wednesday. The 1,000 devices that were available for US$209 including shipping are already sold out. The new retail price is 249 USD.
Jolla's goal is to raise $380,000 and sell 2,000 units before Dec. 9.