Jolla Announced Their First Smartphone, Yours For €399

Late last year a group of ex-nokia employees under the N9 and the meego platform formed a new company called Jolla Mobile and soon after that they showed off the OS which will be powering the device from the company which was called Sailfish OS. Fast forward to this day, the company has finally announced their first device which somehow doesn't have an exact name yet but for now i'll just call it Jolla's first smartphone.  This device will be pioneering the new operating system and in the hardware sides' the device packs a 4.5" display of unknown resolution, an unnamed dual core processor, an 8MP camera with LED flash, 16GB of onboard storage which is expandable via microSD slot, the ever so controversial user removable battery is present, and LTE in supported regions. The company said that this device will be yielding support for android apps. Moving to the outer of the device, which includes a two part construction which is the back cover and the phone, the design looks very simplistic and has a certain style to it and to top it off, multiple colors will be available.

"Carrying the DNA of Nokia with Colors"

"Jolla's phone might not have the apps but it's design is surely something to drool over"

I can see this phone really being a popular hit among people which are particularly keen for design because the amount of detail the team at Jolla put is just phenomenal. Personally i really like the design of it with the buttons and the two piece design, this really is the true successor to the N9 or in other words "the N9 reborn". Moving on to the nitty gritty info, Jolla is planning to launch this phone at first to selected European countries and in the near future more regions will get it. The price of the device is set at €399 or about $510, personally i think that the price is pretty reasonable but that is when i overlook the unannounced capabilities of the fresh OS. Additionally, device will be heading to users by the end of the year. It really looks like a tough battle for this new OS as they are not only competing with the heavyweight contenders but they also need to take on the new kids on the block which include Ubuntu, Tizen and Firefox. It seems to be a tough battle but i think Jolla is able to make it if they get the operating system correct because currently hand swiping gestures is pretty popular, so they are on the right track. In the same context they are having 3 pre order options for the device; the first one is a zero cost option which will include you a reservation of the device when it finally comes to your land; the second one is will cost you €40 and will get you a limited edition version of the device, a t-shirt and a priority status for you pre order; finally is the €100 deal which includes an exclusive back cover for the device, a t-shirt, and a €100 rebate off the total price of the device. You can check out more details here. As to more of my thoughts, i can't convey it because the company still has not officially revealed details on the sailfish OS in whole, so this will continue in a follow up article. To check out more photos of Jolla's first smartphone click here 
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My First Hands On With The Samsung Galaxy S4

This weekend was the global launch of the Galaxy S4 and pretty surprisingly the device came to my country on the first wave, i was actually expecting it to come on the second week. But nonetheless, today i had my first hands on look at the device. After weeks of reading and watching Youtube videos about the device i finally had my hands on of the device an my overall word in this first hands on is that i am really disappointed with the device. Well there is quite a story to this encounter, so without further ado. I went out to the shopping mall in the evening to both buy some groceries and ate dinner and most importantly taking my first hands on look with the device.

After eating dinner i rushed to the nearest electronics store; i did not first choose to go the the official Samsung shop because in the past i went there first and it was crowded to the roof. So i went to three electronic shops which had Samsung tables showcasing Galaxy devices but they all did not have the S4 there. So then i quickly went to the official Samsung shop and from a distant i saw a big crowd outside the store and i knew they wanted to test out the Galaxy S4. Upon reaching there i found out that there were only 2 Galaxy S4's and everybody was crowding on that table just to take a look at the device. So i waited along with the people and handily let everybody try out the device first as i am going to take quite some time due to taking photos. While waiting i notice on the opposite of the table there was a device which looked like the Galaxy S4 but it wasn't it was the Ativ S, i actually very excited to have seen the device because it was only recently announced in my country and prior to the launch of the S4 i was looking up and down for it. In the next article i will be talking about my thoughts of the device so stay tuned. Jumping back to the story i waited for about 15 mins and in that time i took pictures of the Ativ S for about 5 mins. In that other 10 minutes i stared into the thin air waiting was looking at people using the two Galaxy S4's and one of the user was using the device beside of me and as usual while waiting i'm listening to what they talk. So while the user was using the device i did pop in to tell about the new features as the user was pretty clueless about the new features and just frantically tapping the screen; pretty weird is that all of the salesperson was on the other tables and were not here to attend the customers. Time passed pretty fast and it was my turn to play with the device, so first i started scrolling thorough the device and then i took out my camera to take all of the pictures of the key aspects of the device. While taking photos of the device i noticed a small square box on the side of the screen, so i decided to click it and it turns out to be something like the assistive touch on the iPhone. So i asked the salesperson what does that box do and he replied 'its like the iPhone touch thing', i gave him the stun face. After completing the picture taking process which took about 10 minutes i played the device for about another 10 minutes and there were quite a lot of people waiting to play with the device at that time, and at one point the user using the second Galaxy S4 in the shop asked me about the new features of the device so i was holding up the device and started talking about the device and also simultaneously everybody began crowding around me as i was doing a short speech about the device. Then after that short speech i continued playing with the device and all of the sudden the device started freezing and lagging i was really quite angry at that time that the device was lagging and i even wanted to make a short video but i did not bring my tripod stand along so i shun the thought away. After that as i was going to leave i took a few more photos comparing the Galaxy S III with the S4. I jumped into the conversation of the person which was asking the salesperson about the S4 and said a mouthful and after that the person said 'how come you know so much one ?' the i replied 'i write a blog about tech news' then he sarcastically replied 'i know la you are a spy from other companies surveying the device'. Continuing to taking my last shots comparing the S3 with the S4 i finally understand TheVerge's review of the S4 in which they said about the plastic. While i was holding both device in my hand while my other hand was holding the camera, i took quite a number of shots because the devices were hot and they kept on slipping of my hand and the hot slippery plastic did not feel good at all. Overall this first look at the device has been pretty bad, i also came to know that the device also went out of stock and a new stock will only come in 2 weeks time. That was pretty dire to hear. I will try again 1 month from now to have another look at the device, maybe at that time things will turn out better. Here are some images of the Galaxy S4 i took but to see all the images click here.

The Dual Camera mode is really the best feature on the S4

One handed operation on the Galaxy S4 for me is no problem

Pretty surprisingly the stock keyboard on the Galaxy S4 feels very nice to type on

A hands on with the Galaxy S4 (left) wouldn't be complete without comparing it with its predecessor, the Galaxy S III (right)

Buy me a cup of coffee to keep me going by donating to me via Paypal. Subscribe to this blog for up to date tech content or you can follow us on Twitter, like our Facebook page and add us to your circles in Google+ to be updated with the latest tech content. Learn More About The Galaxy S4 Here. Tip us about something we are not aware of