A €649 European Linux phone with a privacy switch — and a comment section full of scar tissue
Jolla is back with a Sailfish 5 handset, a hardware privacy switch, and a €99 deposit to reserve the October batch. The thread wants to believe — but the people who bought the first Jolla a decade ago remember exactly how it went.
The pitch: a Dimensity 7100, replaceable battery, assembled in Finland, “no tracking, no calling home,” and Android-app support on a real Linux OS. The price is €649, with a refundable down payment to lock a delivery slot.
The skepticism is specific, not vague: Sailfish carries closed-source UI components, MediaTek chips spook the bootloader crowd, and banking and 2FA apps remain the wall every Linux phone hits.
The independent-European-phone pitch, version N
The product page sells the Jolla Phone as “the independent European Do It Together Linux phone”: a 6.36″ AMOLED, MediaTek Dimensity 7100, 8–12GB RAM, a 5,450mAh user-replaceable battery, Sailfish OS 5 with Android-app support, and a hardware Privacy Switch — “no tracking, no calling home, no hidden analytics.” It's €649, assembled in Finland, sold in 2,000-unit batches with a “€99 down payment to lock your October delivery” and a refundable 14-day policy.
“AOSP is more open than Sailfish”
The most deflating correction targeted the open-source halo. A reader who tracks Sailfish's licensing pointed out how much of it isn't open:
“Sailfish has a lot of closed-source components, especially UI-related, despite the overall marketing/'vibe' making it look very open. If anything, AOSP (Android) is more open than Sailfish.”
And the perennial Linux-phone wall came up immediately. One commenter named the real adoption blocker: “the compatibility with things like banking apps, 2fa etc. It makes it quite an impossible daily driver thanks to some strange rules.”
A decade of receipts in the replies
What gives this thread its texture is memory. A first-Jolla owner described buying the original “Linux phone that runs Android apps,” finding most Android apps didn't work, getting no support, and watching the OS ship already obsolete: “I have zero trust in this company.” Others found the storefront itself off-putting — “looks like a generic fake shop,” one said — and balked at €649 for mid-range silicon.
The note that captured the whole mood was affectionate and resigned at once: a backer who ordered two wrote that he's happy to support the project “all the best I can,” then signed off “Sent from my iPhone 17 Pro.” That's the gap Jolla still has to close — not enthusiasm for an independent European phone, but the willingness to actually carry one.
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