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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 May 2014
I'm probably not the target market for this phone, I'm not a programmer and have no idea how to handle complex computer problems, I can google up solutions to most problems but that's about it. Having said that, I did own the N770 maemo tablet from Nokia, which was a fun toy for those times.
So I was expecting this phone to be way too beta for me, and I was expecting to (A) have to keep my iPhone as a 'real' phone backup, and (B) have to run mostly the android apps. After around a week my iphone went into a drawer and was forgotten, after a month or so the Android emulating part of the software was removed.
I found almost all my basic app needs were met by real, native Sailfish apps. Spotify, whatsapp, facebook, ebook reader, podcast player, gps run tracker etc. Not only that though, but also the OS is just so far ahead of iOS and android, once I got used to it it was impossible to go back. There are a lot of gestures and shortcuts that feel strange at first, but after they settle in the muscle memory going back to other mobile OSs was painful. Everything takes a little longer to do in Android and iOS, and also everything requires more specificity, selecting options in these OSs requires you to touch them directly, but in Sailfish you quickly get used to touching anywhere in the screen and using the pulley menus to select options.
It's only a matter of time before some of these features are stolen by Apple or Google (as an example, to lock the screen rotation in iOS requires you to double tap the homescreen button, select the radio button for screen locking and then return to where you where with another button press, but in sailfish you just hold the screen as you rotate the phone, that's genius). Until then though, this phone is in my humble opinion, the most advanced piece of mobile GUI on the planet by a long way. There are still rough edges, but nothing that would even make me think about going back to the other options. Using Sailfish is an absolute pleasure.
So I was expecting this phone to be way too beta for me, and I was expecting to (A) have to keep my iPhone as a 'real' phone backup, and (B) have to run mostly the android apps. After around a week my iphone went into a drawer and was forgotten, after a month or so the Android emulating part of the software was removed.
I found almost all my basic app needs were met by real, native Sailfish apps. Spotify, whatsapp, facebook, ebook reader, podcast player, gps run tracker etc. Not only that though, but also the OS is just so far ahead of iOS and android, once I got used to it it was impossible to go back. There are a lot of gestures and shortcuts that feel strange at first, but after they settle in the muscle memory going back to other mobile OSs was painful. Everything takes a little longer to do in Android and iOS, and also everything requires more specificity, selecting options in these OSs requires you to touch them directly, but in Sailfish you quickly get used to touching anywhere in the screen and using the pulley menus to select options.
It's only a matter of time before some of these features are stolen by Apple or Google (as an example, to lock the screen rotation in iOS requires you to double tap the homescreen button, select the radio button for screen locking and then return to where you where with another button press, but in sailfish you just hold the screen as you rotate the phone, that's genius). Until then though, this phone is in my humble opinion, the most advanced piece of mobile GUI on the planet by a long way. There are still rough edges, but nothing that would even make me think about going back to the other options. Using Sailfish is an absolute pleasure.
