Jolla Tablet

Expected May 2015
19th November 2014

Following on from last year's Jolla smartphone, the upcoming Jolla Tablet brings the open source Sailfish OS to a 7.9" tablet with similar specifications to the iPad Mini 3, but with a very different design philosophy.

The Linux-based Sailfish operating system is derived in part from MeeGo, the operating system made for the very rare Nokia N9. As such, it's a fascinating glimpse into what might have been if Nokia had continued down the road with MeeGo, and indeed Jolla employs many ex-Nokia staff. In the same week that Nokia announced their N1 tablet, the Jolla Tablet is distinctly more individual and it probably has much more Nokia DNA in it that the Foxconn manufactured N1.

Sailfish is a gesture-based OS with sophisticated multitasking, all designed to be open source. In addition to native Sailfish applications it can run Android applications too, which can be downloaded from the Jolla Store and other Android app marketplaces.

Inside is a 1.8GHz quad-core CPU and 2GB of RAM with 32GB of flash memory plus a microSD slot. The display is a 7.85" 2048 x 1536 pixel panel (almost identical to the current iPad Mini and the N1). Inside is a 4300 mAh battery, along with WiFi support, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and GLONASS and a pretty standard set of sensors. There's no 3G/LTE version of the Jolla tablet, but it is easy enough to pair it with a smartphone. There's a 5 megapixel camera on the back capable of 1080p video capture at 60fps, plus a 2 megapixel one on the front too.

Jolla is crowdsourcing funding for this tablet, and at the moment it has easily exceeded its funding goals which is looking promising. Jolla say that the first units should start shipping to funders in May 2015. When it goes on general release the retail price is estimated to be $249.

If you are looking for a tablet that is different from the crowd then this is certainly worth considering, it certainly looks refreshingly different from Apple's offering and most of the competition. You can find out more about the Jolla Tablet at jolla.com/tablet and the crowdfunding campaign at Indiegogo.