Gadgetory

Yola we've spent five days getting to know it not quite enough time for a review but enough to learn it's high and low points before sending back our demo unit so here it is this is michael fisher with pocket now and here's what we love and what we don't about Yola the new sailfish powered smartphone this devices story is much more about software than hardware so let's talk a little about the sailfish OS it's origin story is so complicated it requires a flowchart to understand but suffice to say it's smart phone software the average non-geek would call brand new and what we love about it is it's totally new interface selfish is vertically oriented so you start with a lock screen which you get to buy a reliable and consistent DoubleTap and beneath that and an intermediate screen is space for your active apps these are a lot like blackberry 10 cards except they remain active in minimized form and even provide quick actions in some situations letting you jump right into a particular app function this vertical layout is logical and it provides the opportunity to implement menus in a whole new way often accessing more options is just a matter of pulling down on a screen exposing an elastic list of shortcuts above and sometimes forward and back motions can be made simply by swiping left or right notifications are also just a swipe away and the trigger gesture for that is down at the bottom of the screen which makes so much more sense than Android or iOS as top mounted notification drawers sailfish also brings some excellent account integration that recalls the webOS synergy features from years ago toss in your Google account credentials and in no time you're chatting and hangouts no app required same for Twitter notifications finally you can clad the whole thing in the color of your choice with the platform's ambiance feature since mimicked by iOS 7 so selfish is customizable in addition to being smart in the way that a phone OS should be when it can it makes your life easier without even asking the hallmark of any solidly designed platform but controlling that platform on a day to day basis gets a little dicey mainly thanks to the gesture based OS we love gestures when they work and here they do often the swipe down to lock motion especially is nice but swiping in from the bezel to go back home it just doesn't feel right not with years of conditioning to expect the home button or home gesture at the bottom and the inconsistency of the back and forward gestures is pretty annoying sometimes they're there and sometimes they're not so the result is a confusing experience overall at least for veterans Yola told us about a grandmother who adapted pretty quickly though so your mileage may vary if you're a first-time smartphone user more generally speaking a lot of sailfish just seems undercooked the Amazon and Yandex app stores help close the app gap with Android titles but both the Android apps and the stores themselves crash a lot if you use two-step Google integration you constantly get kicked out of your accounts requiring re-registration the browser has trouble with some websites the keyboard feels smaller than it really is and it's autocorrect is rudimentary so on we can forgive a lot of this because the platform is still technically in beta and it's also meant for tinkerers and people for whom just being different is enough but selfish has a lot of room for improvement thankfully Yola is getting an early start on community feedback and it says that feedback will have a heavy impact on sailfish going forward you'll be running that software on the same hardware for a while and on the good side we hear no complaints from folks we talked to on Yola while noise cancellation could use some improvement voice calls are clear for the most part yola's unique design is fun to trot out in public and demoing the functionality of the other half is a particular high point it's a simple trick for a phone to recognize the color of a snap-on component and adjust its software to match but it's still a big crowd-pleaser and that's only going to get better as more other half modules become available we also like the removable battery and microSD expansion both endangered-species these days well we don't really hate any part of the hardware there's plenty here that's probably best described as men the display for example kicks out beautiful color but it's low resolution is definitely noticeable the chassis z' feel in hand isn't cheap but it's also not stellar sailfish suffers from some optimization challenges so it's tough to last a full day on its battery and the camera while passable in most lighting scenarios isn't really anything special good shots are certainly possible but focus is a little finicky and the end results are fuzzy and washed out a little more often than we'd like ending the hardware section on an up note yola's internals do alright with gaming once you find one that'll run reliably drag-racing keeps hanging on us for some reason but jetpack joyride is smooth and fluid and sound from the on-board speakers is pretty good too once you learn to get your fingers away from the loudspeaker ports as we wrap up we'll remind you that this is not a full review Yola isn't built for the market we're testing it in and it's being updated all the time again it's very much a beta product something the company makes clear on its specs page so if your goal is to get something new and fresh at all costs and the idea of being part of a small but passionate community with the ability to affect the platform's future appeals to you your 399 euro will be well spent if you're a more traditional consumer though Yola probably isn't for you as for us well we're a bit more excited for yola's future than its present form but given the talent behind the project we think that future has a good chance of being a bright one for more on Yola and hundreds of other smartphones visit pocketnow.com and subscribe here on youtube and if you want to learn more about Sailfish check out our first impressions video as well as episode zero seven five of our weekly podcast then stay tuned for much more from pocket now in the year ahead you