Jolla revives its Sailfish Linux phone with a community-voted, privacy-first handset

Jolla is taking pre-orders for a new Linux phone shipping October 2026, pitched as a successor to its original 2013 device and built around Sailfish OS 5 rather than any Google or Big Tech stack. The company is selling in fixed batches with locked prices — a 99€ refundable down payment secures a slot toward a 649€ final price — explicitly to hedge against the volatile memory-component market expected through 2026. Hardware is mid-range and deliberately repairable: a MediaTek Dimensity 7100, a 6.36-inch FullHD AMOLED, Sony cameras, a user-replaceable 5450mAh battery, swappable colored back covers, and assembly in Finland. Android apps run through Jolla’s AppSupport layer and can be shut off entirely to go fully de-Googled.

The selling proposition is privacy framed as a design principle. The phone ships with a configurable physical Privacy Switch that can cut the microphone, Bluetooth, or Android subsystem, and Jolla claims Sailfish OS does no tracking, profiling, or background phoning-home — contrasting it against mainstream Android devices that transmit data to Google even while idle. It also promises a minimum five years of OS support and incremental updates as a stance against forced obsolescence.

The more interesting angle is the go-to-market itself. Jolla is framing the device as a community mission: Sailfish OS users voted on the specs, philosophy, and feature set, and the firm is reviving its modular “The Other Half” smart-cover platform for community-designed modules. With cumulative pre-orders reportedly passing 10,000 units by the third batch, it’s a notable signal of demand for a genuinely independent, European, non-Android mobile alternative — even if niche.