8 ms·

Linux-ready, made-in-Germany “Volla Phone” succeeds on Kickstarter

154 points by reddotX 7y ago

jacobush 7y ago
How can 20k euros buy a phone? I doesn't make any sense, unless it already exists and this is "only" a branding effort. The kickstarter mentions Gigaset, do they have a ready Ubuntu Phone already?
- alex_duf 7y ago
  I had the same thinking. It feels like a desperate attempt to draw more money into the campaign with a "success story" I wish them good luck though, I wouldn't want them to fail.
- quakegen 7y ago
  "We have already invested in a prototype community port of Sailfish OS and Ubuntu Touch"
- deathjest3r 7y ago
  It looks to be like rebranded Gigaset GS290... They put their logo on the case and install some other OS for you and sell it for 50€ more than the original one...
  - panpanna 7y ago
    I would happily pay those €50 if it works as advertised. Time is money and anything that keeps me away from random dudes random ROM on XDA is a good thing.
  - Zenst 7y ago
    Interesting and given "The price of €359 inside Europe or €309 outside (plus any import taxes)" I'm thinking by Europe they mean the EU, hence price in Euros. Also https://www.notebookcheck.net/Gigaset-GS290-Review-Good-smartphone-with-small-weaknesses.448147.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Gigaset-GS290-Review-Good-smar... Has a price of 269 Euro - first URL saw and didn't hunt for cheapest I also looked at specs...and agree it does look like the Gigaset GS290, and yes it 50 euros more - only if you live outside the EU/Europe! Otherwise if you live inside EUrope, its 100 euros more. For a phone that they say will be made in EUrope. So it does somewhat feel like you are better off buying a phone that has good alternative OS support (like an older Samsung or other popular model of yesteryear) and a case of your choice and ending up with something cheaper and better. Also this free VPN, it's a 3rd party. Well Willyfox released a phone and promised advert free truecaller for life - I can attest that was a lie. So be mindful of such 3rd party services they offer as you have no guarantee with that. Also of most importance: "DISCLAIMER: Please note that the device is only CE certified and importation into countries outside the EU and EFTA states may be refused by customs." So they will sell you a phone that you legally may not be able to use and possibly be blocked by customs and in that situation - I suspect they will just point to that disclaimer and say told you so without any way to resolve you outlay. THAT is something to be most mindful of.
- jotm 7y ago
  To be fair, this particular design seems to be one of those common Chinese ones used by any company who wants to make a phone. It's really easy to assemble, hard to disassemble. It's been used in countless Xiaomi phones, lesser known Chinese brands, even Samsung seems to have borrowed from it. It's the same basic design as the OnePlus 6/6t, boards and battery glue sandwiched between two pieces of glass (the front one being the screen itself). If they skip on the material and fit quality (like Xiaomi does), it can be done for really cheap in any semi-decent factory. If my experience with anything MediaTek still holds, they better use a good heatsink, because their chips get hot, and they die from it, too.
  - baybal2 7y ago
    We have few Xiaomi phone users in our office. We noticed that a same model phones can physically differ by few millimetres and actually have a bit different hardware internally like sensors, and etc. Xiaomi apparently sources multiple OEM models from multiple suppliers for sale under one label
    - Maxious 7y ago
      eg. for the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 there are two variants "nikel (Mediatek) has 6 speaker holes on each side, while mido (Qualcomm Snapdragon) has 5. Mediatek also has screws on each side of the micro-USB port."
- fock 7y ago
  well, if it "buys" the kernel source so that mainline-linux is theoretically possible I'm really fine with it.
- ZiiS 7y ago
  "Iterations of the white back case of the Volla Phone." are literally moving the printed logo around; not about actually designing even the case.
kees99 7y ago
I'm struggling to reconcile "Linux-ready" in the title and this blurb in the article body: MediaTek Helio P24 SoC is not one of the most easily hackable, and its Taiwanese manufacturer is not exactly famous for releasing kernel sources.
- notRobot 7y ago
  Please don't use code blocks to quote text, it's very hard to read on mobile and narrow viewports.
  - elcomet 7y ago
    > MediaTek Helio P24 SoC is not one of the most easily hackable, and its Taiwanese manufacturer is not exactly famous for releasing kernel sources.
- diggan 7y ago
  According to the submission: "out-of-the-box support for community builds of Ubuntu Touch and Sailfish OS" So even if it's not easily hackable or if MediaTek isn't famous for releasing kernel sources, seems like the company behind the phone will make sure at least Ubuntu Touch and Sailfish OS runs on it. Edit: also, the sentence right your quote explains "In this case, however, Volla told us that its kernel sources should be publicly available"
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- OJFord 7y ago
  You cut the quote before: > In this case, however, Volla told us that its kernel sources should be publicly available. Which links to: https://twitter.com/hello_volla/status/1223819263745646592 https://twitter.com/hello_volla/status/1223819263745646592 > The kernel is public and we have the BSP.
- opan 7y ago
  Yeah, I'm thinking this is more like the Gemini (which turned out horrible, mine sits in a drawer unused) than the PinePhone. MediaTek is terrible, and I wouldn't be surprised if they need libhybris to get Sailfish and such working.
baybal2 7y ago
I'm sceptical. From my knowledge of the phone industry, and one of out past client's venture into it, the minimal viable budget for a cellphone project is $1M these days on the low side. - MOQs of all truly essential assemblies are huge: high-end PCBs, custom made camera modules, custom cut LCD/OLED cells, antenna-body integrated assemblies - RnD is long and torturous, even without Android atrocity: RF-tuning for high perf wireless, tiny high density PCBs development, lots of prototyping for bodywork and LCD assemblies - SCM challenges are monumental even for factories in South China: constant shortages and high lead times of speciality passives, time spent waiting for parts, while burning money, logistics to and from module integrators... Smartphones are becoming like jet engines: while parts count in general go down per unit of functionality, and they become simpler for non-IC parts of the design, very few can make them competitively as the supply chain gets longer, and 3rd parties are now taking bigger and bigger cuts with each year.
- jotm 7y ago
  Don't need R&D or custom parts if you use existing designs and existing part lines from China. This is the same design used by many Xiaomi phones and lots of clones/rebrands. Someone mentioned even Siemens has one.
  - BuildTheRobots 7y ago
    > This is the same design used by many Xiaomi phones and lots of clones/rebrands. Someone mentioned even Siemens has one. That would explain why "the device will be entirely assembled by (Siemens) Gigaset factories in Germany." So it's a whitelabel phone. I seem to be misunderstanding the excitement :\
    - syshum 7y ago
      The excitement would be competition in the OS Market Google did to phones what MS did to PC's. Dominated the OS market making it non-competitive. That is very bad for many reasons. We need viable options and alternatives to iOS and Android. Hardware is less exciting to me than the Software, and the Operating systems. Competition there would be nice
aquir 7y ago
No dual SIM :(
- aquir 7y ago
  Sorry, if it's a rebranded Gigaset GS290 then it did have dual SIM
paulcarroty 7y ago
> MediaTek Helio P24 SoC Thanks, nope. Firmware is closed source and you'll never get updates in 99% cases.
panpanna 7y ago
How does this compare to pinephone? https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ I might be wrong but it feels as if that's were the mindshare is right now (maybe because they have already shipped development phones)
ChrisRR 7y ago
Surely 20k isn't enough to manufacture a phone. Even the tools themselves would cost more than that, let alone purchasing components. Unless they're CNCing the housing for every device
- jowsie 7y ago
  It's just a white label Gigaset GS290 from what I've read. No tooling costs etc.
Tepix 7y ago
One of the best things about this phone is currently hidden in Update #6: Backers can get the phone with a preinstalled Ubuntu Touch OS! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/volla/volla-phone-designed-with-simplicity-and-security-in-mind/posts/2769732 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/volla/volla-phone-desig...
Itismelee 7y ago
20k isn't enough for communication cost for heaven sake. Plus what niche is it targeting? Geeks? Good luck milking the milkers.
numlock86 7y ago
Why support this Kickstarter campaign instead of just buying a Gigaset GS290? For the custom OS?
8fingerlouie 7y ago
I hope some day, somebody will recognize that phones have become our everyday computers, and will create such a device. A phone that is just that on it's own, but couple it with a dock and it becomes a desktop computer. It will of course require apps to have both phone and desktop UI variants, but given that most serious apps already have both phone and desktop versions i don't really see that as a major problem. My current phone has just about as much RAM, CPU and GPU as my desktop machine has, so performance should be somewhat "desktop like". I'm aware this is partially what Ubuntu tried to do with the Ubuntu Phone, but last i checked that project wasn't doing too well.
- jowsie 7y ago
  Samsung Dex has been doing this for years now.
  - LeonM 7y ago
    I was surprised how useful Dex has become, and yet no one seems to speak about it. Currently the only thing holding me back is that my particular phone (S9+) has fairly limited resolution support. IIRC the Note models are supposed to do much better as they have a discrete GPU for Dex output. But basically all my day-to-day development tasks can be done on Dex and a SSH/terminal app.
    - pmontra 7y ago
      I second your sentiment but the Android keyboard (external Bluetooth) is not very Linux friendly. I googled and experimented and there is no way to have an Esc key. I have to work in vi with control ], like on some broken terminal from the 80s. If anybody has a solution I'll pay with an upvote :-)
      - LeonM 7y ago
        You can connect any regular keyboard through BT or USB. The escape key just works as expected.
  - 7y ago
longtermd 7y ago
It's exciting to see this. I believe such a design will have many applications in niche industries and niche use cases for sure.
bitL 7y ago
Let's cripple our project right from the beginning by including an ugly notch at the top, a "design feature" that tanked Essential, caused recent sales slip of new Nokia phones and forced even low-cost Chinese manufacturers to switch into drilling a circular hole in the display for placing camera in order to avoid its negative sales effects.
- teekert 7y ago
  /opinion
  - baybal2 7y ago
    Actually a very sensible opinion. If anybody put a bare minimum effort to survey the market, they would've found that some no notch models are being sold solely because of that. If you make 2 similar models, one with notch, and one without the first will sink in sales, things are as simple as that. Look at sales stats for Mi Max 3. Despite good sales Mi kills it, and then get surprised how their other models didn't get any sales kick, and then resuming Mi Max production. Same with other brands having a "Waterloo moment" with models lacking 3.5mm jack. Samsung saw trashy sales on low and mid-level models without jacks, made models with jacks, then removed them again, and is now about to introduce new A and J series phones with jacks again. Some times they don't learn... I think the same thing was with removable batteries and tf cards. What was good for Apple, was a real poison for brands with a polar opposite identity to Apple. I attribute HTC's demise highhandedly to them denying removable storage, and jacking storage prices, while few power user brands were hammering that point. I can remember such cases where blindly chasing trendsetters kills many times, going back to 200X, and Nokia. So many brands went under chasing Nokia because they were perceived as "cheaper, worse Nokia's" just as today some brands became "worse Iphones"
    - teekert 7y ago
      Still think it is opinion, why not see it as 2 extra flaps of display at the top? Why not cover those areas with display if you can? I certainly agree on the removable battery though. I also hated that they removed the head phone jack. But I recently bought 16$ qcy bt headphones, never looked back. Personally I don't care much about notches and headphone jacks at all. The camera would now be my nr. 1 buying argument.
Zenst 7y ago
Kinda feel they would be better off providing an OS reflash service for a 50 euro fee of a range of phones they could expand over time. Given this is just a rebrand of an existing phone as many have pointed out.
megous 7y ago
Where's helio P24? https://www.mediatek.com/products/smartphones/helio-p https://www.mediatek.com/products/smartphones/helio-p
ageitgey 7y ago
It's totally misleading of the article to suggest this phone is a success in any way. Building a phone (even on top of a rebranded device) is incredibly hard and expensive and unfortunately they didn't raise anywhere near enough money to even try. The Volla Phone met an arbitrary goal of raising 20k, but they were clearly using the common KickStarter tactic of setting a really low initial goal that they hoped to blow past to build press and enthusiasm. But then unfortunately they... didn't. And they only tried this second approach after running a previous campaign to raise 350,000 euros and getting no where close. Selling ~50 phones and not even managing to sell out the "early bird" option is the opposite of a successful KickStarter launch. They didn't even raise enough money to pay a single developer, let alone deliver an entire custom OS. And it's clear from the demo video that they don't have much software built yet. There's just no way they could deliver on their promises with the tiny amount of money raised. I'd be surprised if this is even enough money to cover the time to purchase, box and ship out the 50 re-branded phones to the backers without installing any custom OS. I hope they decide to either just return the money or immediately ship out unmodified phones instead of trying to build their custom software. They just didn't get enough money to do that and it would most likely lead to pain and disappointment on all sides to even try.
- wtetzner 7y ago
  > It's totally misleading of the article to suggest this phone is a success in any way. It sounded to more like the Kickstarter succeeded, which usually means they just hit their goal. If you read the article, it doesn't claim anywhere that the phone itself is a success. That said, I agree with pretty much everything else you said.
  - a012 7y ago
    Say "success on ..." still sounds dishonest and clickbaity. It should be "exceeded milestone" or just "reached their goal".
totaldude87 7y ago
totally unrelated, any of you feel that kickstarter's logo is stale and due for an update?
RegnisGnaw 7y ago
How many Kickstarters have we had for these phones? I will personally bet $1000 this doesn't ship.
blitmap 7y ago
I just want a hand-sized general-purpose tablet with a 5g modem I can plug in when I need a phone. I like the 'security by isolation' aspect of physically unplugging my cellular connectivity. Otherwise I piggyback on Google Voice for texts/calls. Also bring back physical slide-out keyboards like the Motorola Sidekick. :-)
robomartin 7y ago
My first reaction was "No f-ing way!". Then I decided to dig deeper. This is just a Gigaset GS290 with different software: https://www.gigaset.com/hq_en/gigaset-gs290/ https://www.gigaset.com/hq_en/gigaset-gs290/ Current street pricing for this phone appears to be around €269. Volla is getting from €298 to €359 for them (Let's ignore the t-shirts, books, etc.). If we assume they are buying the phones for, say, 25% off, their COGS is around €200 per unit. In other words, they are getting paid between €100 and €159 to develop software and support their version of the phone. In the case of the KS campaign, that amounts to about €5000 and €7950. There are other possible business arrangements that are often negotiated in these kinds of deals. For example, Gigaset manages fulfillment under the Volla brand and they split the profits. That would imply zero upfront costs to Volla. That's the kind of deal I would want to make if I were in their shoes. Don't deal with hardware if you don't have to. Hardware is hard and very expensive. I am going to guess or assume (and we know how dangerous assumptions can be) that the bulk of the software has already been developed and might even be in release-able condition. I make this assumption because they've been at this crowd-sourcing thing for a while. In other words, they have sunk costs. And it might very well be that they don't really have to invest much more to actually deliver these modified COTS phones. In that context the €5K to €8K they just raised (after paying for the hardware) might be fine. It's a signal rather than a bankroll needed to produce phones. They are NOT manufacturing hardware from scratch. At worst they might have custom printed packaging, which costs nothing. I then looked into Gigaset. It's a solid company. Used to be Siemens Home. Now 70% owned by Goldin Group out of Hong Kong (which puts into question just how much is really "Made in Germany"). Still, this is a real company with real products. Therefore, there is no reason to doubt the hardware at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigaset_Communications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigaset_Communications One way I came out of this is to consider the idea that, if the Volla software does not work out for whatever reason users might be able to reprogram their phones with the standard Gigaset software and life goes on. If this is the case, and you like Gigaphone, this deal has basically zero risk. You are paying a relatively small premium to try a proposal that may or may not work. Which is fine. Good project.
aganame 7y ago
Another one to bite the dust.

154 points by reddotX 7y ago

How can 20k euros buy a phone? I doesn't make any sense, unless it already exists and this is "only" a branding effort. The kickstarter mentions Gigaset, do they have a ready Ubuntu Phone already?

alex_duf 7y ago
I had the same thinking. It feels like a desperate attempt to draw more money into the campaign with a "success story" I wish them good luck though, I wouldn't want them to fail.
quakegen 7y ago
"We have already invested in a prototype community port of Sailfish OS and Ubuntu Touch"
deathjest3r 7y ago
It looks to be like rebranded Gigaset GS290... They put their logo on the case and install some other OS for you and sell it for 50€ more than the original one...
- panpanna 7y ago
  I would happily pay those €50 if it works as advertised. Time is money and anything that keeps me away from random dudes random ROM on XDA is a good thing.
- Zenst 7y ago
  Interesting and given "The price of €359 inside Europe or €309 outside (plus any import taxes)" I'm thinking by Europe they mean the EU, hence price in Euros. Also https://www.notebookcheck.net/Gigaset-GS290-Review-Good-smartphone-with-small-weaknesses.448147.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Gigaset-GS290-Review-Good-smar... Has a price of 269 Euro - first URL saw and didn't hunt for cheapest I also looked at specs...and agree it does look like the Gigaset GS290, and yes it 50 euros more - only if you live outside the EU/Europe! Otherwise if you live inside EUrope, its 100 euros more. For a phone that they say will be made in EUrope. So it does somewhat feel like you are better off buying a phone that has good alternative OS support (like an older Samsung or other popular model of yesteryear) and a case of your choice and ending up with something cheaper and better. Also this free VPN, it's a 3rd party. Well Willyfox released a phone and promised advert free truecaller for life - I can attest that was a lie. So be mindful of such 3rd party services they offer as you have no guarantee with that. Also of most importance: "DISCLAIMER: Please note that the device is only CE certified and importation into countries outside the EU and EFTA states may be refused by customs." So they will sell you a phone that you legally may not be able to use and possibly be blocked by customs and in that situation - I suspect they will just point to that disclaimer and say told you so without any way to resolve you outlay. THAT is something to be most mindful of.
jotm 7y ago
To be fair, this particular design seems to be one of those common Chinese ones used by any company who wants to make a phone. It's really easy to assemble, hard to disassemble. It's been used in countless Xiaomi phones, lesser known Chinese brands, even Samsung seems to have borrowed from it. It's the same basic design as the OnePlus 6/6t, boards and battery glue sandwiched between two pieces of glass (the front one being the screen itself). If they skip on the material and fit quality (like Xiaomi does), it can be done for really cheap in any semi-decent factory. If my experience with anything MediaTek still holds, they better use a good heatsink, because their chips get hot, and they die from it, too.
- baybal2 7y ago
  We have few Xiaomi phone users in our office. We noticed that a same model phones can physically differ by few millimetres and actually have a bit different hardware internally like sensors, and etc. Xiaomi apparently sources multiple OEM models from multiple suppliers for sale under one label
  - Maxious 7y ago
    eg. for the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 there are two variants "nikel (Mediatek) has 6 speaker holes on each side, while mido (Qualcomm Snapdragon) has 5. Mediatek also has screws on each side of the micro-USB port."
fock 7y ago
well, if it "buys" the kernel source so that mainline-linux is theoretically possible I'm really fine with it.
ZiiS 7y ago
"Iterations of the white back case of the Volla Phone." are literally moving the printed logo around; not about actually designing even the case.

kees99 7y ago

I'm struggling to reconcile "Linux-ready" in the title and this blurb in the article body: MediaTek Helio P24 SoC is not one of the most easily hackable, and its Taiwanese manufacturer is not exactly famous for releasing kernel sources.

notRobot 7y ago
Please don't use code blocks to quote text, it's very hard to read on mobile and narrow viewports.
- elcomet 7y ago
  > MediaTek Helio P24 SoC is not one of the most easily hackable, and its Taiwanese manufacturer is not exactly famous for releasing kernel sources.
diggan 7y ago
According to the submission: "out-of-the-box support for community builds of Ubuntu Touch and Sailfish OS" So even if it's not easily hackable or if MediaTek isn't famous for releasing kernel sources, seems like the company behind the phone will make sure at least Ubuntu Touch and Sailfish OS runs on it. Edit: also, the sentence right your quote explains "In this case, however, Volla told us that its kernel sources should be publicly available"
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
OJFord 7y ago
You cut the quote before: > In this case, however, Volla told us that its kernel sources should be publicly available. Which links to: https://twitter.com/hello_volla/status/1223819263745646592 https://twitter.com/hello_volla/status/1223819263745646592 > The kernel is public and we have the BSP.
opan 7y ago
Yeah, I'm thinking this is more like the Gemini (which turned out horrible, mine sits in a drawer unused) than the PinePhone. MediaTek is terrible, and I wouldn't be surprised if they need libhybris to get Sailfish and such working.

baybal2 7y ago

I'm sceptical. From my knowledge of the phone industry, and one of out past client's venture into it, the minimal viable budget for a cellphone project is $1M these days on the low side. - MOQs of all truly essential assemblies are huge: high-end PCBs, custom made camera modules, custom cut LCD/OLED cells, antenna-body integrated assemblies - RnD is long and torturous, even without Android atrocity: RF-tuning for high perf wireless, tiny high density PCBs development, lots of prototyping for bodywork and LCD assemblies - SCM challenges are monumental even for factories in South China: constant shortages and high lead times of speciality passives, time spent waiting for parts, while burning money, logistics to and from module integrators... Smartphones are becoming like jet engines: while parts count in general go down per unit of functionality, and they become simpler for non-IC parts of the design, very few can make them competitively as the supply chain gets longer, and 3rd parties are now taking bigger and bigger cuts with each year.

jotm 7y ago
Don't need R&D or custom parts if you use existing designs and existing part lines from China. This is the same design used by many Xiaomi phones and lots of clones/rebrands. Someone mentioned even Siemens has one.
- BuildTheRobots 7y ago
  > This is the same design used by many Xiaomi phones and lots of clones/rebrands. Someone mentioned even Siemens has one. That would explain why "the device will be entirely assembled by (Siemens) Gigaset factories in Germany." So it's a whitelabel phone. I seem to be misunderstanding the excitement :\
  - syshum 7y ago
    The excitement would be competition in the OS Market Google did to phones what MS did to PC's. Dominated the OS market making it non-competitive. That is very bad for many reasons. We need viable options and alternatives to iOS and Android. Hardware is less exciting to me than the Software, and the Operating systems. Competition there would be nice

aquir 7y ago

No dual SIM :(

aquir 7y ago
Sorry, if it's a rebranded Gigaset GS290 then it did have dual SIM

paulcarroty 7y ago

> MediaTek Helio P24 SoC Thanks, nope. Firmware is closed source and you'll never get updates in 99% cases.

panpanna 7y ago

How does this compare to pinephone? https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ I might be wrong but it feels as if that's were the mindshare is right now (maybe because they have already shipped development phones)

ChrisRR 7y ago

Surely 20k isn't enough to manufacture a phone. Even the tools themselves would cost more than that, let alone purchasing components. Unless they're CNCing the housing for every device

jowsie 7y ago
It's just a white label Gigaset GS290 from what I've read. No tooling costs etc.

Tepix 7y ago

One of the best things about this phone is currently hidden in Update #6: Backers can get the phone with a preinstalled Ubuntu Touch OS! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/volla/volla-phone-designed-with-simplicity-and-security-in-mind/posts/2769732 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/volla/volla-phone-desig...

Itismelee 7y ago

20k isn't enough for communication cost for heaven sake. Plus what niche is it targeting? Geeks? Good luck milking the milkers.

numlock86 7y ago

Why support this Kickstarter campaign instead of just buying a Gigaset GS290? For the custom OS?

8fingerlouie 7y ago

I hope some day, somebody will recognize that phones have become our everyday computers, and will create such a device. A phone that is just that on it's own, but couple it with a dock and it becomes a desktop computer. It will of course require apps to have both phone and desktop UI variants, but given that most serious apps already have both phone and desktop versions i don't really see that as a major problem. My current phone has just about as much RAM, CPU and GPU as my desktop machine has, so performance should be somewhat "desktop like". I'm aware this is partially what Ubuntu tried to do with the Ubuntu Phone, but last i checked that project wasn't doing too well.

jowsie 7y ago
Samsung Dex has been doing this for years now.
- LeonM 7y ago
  I was surprised how useful Dex has become, and yet no one seems to speak about it. Currently the only thing holding me back is that my particular phone (S9+) has fairly limited resolution support. IIRC the Note models are supposed to do much better as they have a discrete GPU for Dex output. But basically all my day-to-day development tasks can be done on Dex and a SSH/terminal app.
  - pmontra 7y ago
    I second your sentiment but the Android keyboard (external Bluetooth) is not very Linux friendly. I googled and experimented and there is no way to have an Esc key. I have to work in vi with control ], like on some broken terminal from the 80s. If anybody has a solution I'll pay with an upvote :-)
    - LeonM 7y ago
      You can connect any regular keyboard through BT or USB. The escape key just works as expected.
- 7y ago

longtermd 7y ago

It's exciting to see this. I believe such a design will have many applications in niche industries and niche use cases for sure.

bitL 7y ago

Let's cripple our project right from the beginning by including an ugly notch at the top, a "design feature" that tanked Essential, caused recent sales slip of new Nokia phones and forced even low-cost Chinese manufacturers to switch into drilling a circular hole in the display for placing camera in order to avoid its negative sales effects.

teekert 7y ago
/opinion
- baybal2 7y ago
  Actually a very sensible opinion. If anybody put a bare minimum effort to survey the market, they would've found that some no notch models are being sold solely because of that. If you make 2 similar models, one with notch, and one without the first will sink in sales, things are as simple as that. Look at sales stats for Mi Max 3. Despite good sales Mi kills it, and then get surprised how their other models didn't get any sales kick, and then resuming Mi Max production. Same with other brands having a "Waterloo moment" with models lacking 3.5mm jack. Samsung saw trashy sales on low and mid-level models without jacks, made models with jacks, then removed them again, and is now about to introduce new A and J series phones with jacks again. Some times they don't learn... I think the same thing was with removable batteries and tf cards. What was good for Apple, was a real poison for brands with a polar opposite identity to Apple. I attribute HTC's demise highhandedly to them denying removable storage, and jacking storage prices, while few power user brands were hammering that point. I can remember such cases where blindly chasing trendsetters kills many times, going back to 200X, and Nokia. So many brands went under chasing Nokia because they were perceived as "cheaper, worse Nokia's" just as today some brands became "worse Iphones"
  - teekert 7y ago
    Still think it is opinion, why not see it as 2 extra flaps of display at the top? Why not cover those areas with display if you can? I certainly agree on the removable battery though. I also hated that they removed the head phone jack. But I recently bought 16$ qcy bt headphones, never looked back. Personally I don't care much about notches and headphone jacks at all. The camera would now be my nr. 1 buying argument.

Zenst 7y ago

Kinda feel they would be better off providing an OS reflash service for a 50 euro fee of a range of phones they could expand over time. Given this is just a rebrand of an existing phone as many have pointed out.

megous 7y ago

Where's helio P24? https://www.mediatek.com/products/smartphones/helio-p https://www.mediatek.com/products/smartphones/helio-p

ageitgey 7y ago

It's totally misleading of the article to suggest this phone is a success in any way. Building a phone (even on top of a rebranded device) is incredibly hard and expensive and unfortunately they didn't raise anywhere near enough money to even try. The Volla Phone met an arbitrary goal of raising 20k, but they were clearly using the common KickStarter tactic of setting a really low initial goal that they hoped to blow past to build press and enthusiasm. But then unfortunately they... didn't. And they only tried this second approach after running a previous campaign to raise 350,000 euros and getting no where close. Selling ~50 phones and not even managing to sell out the "early bird" option is the opposite of a successful KickStarter launch. They didn't even raise enough money to pay a single developer, let alone deliver an entire custom OS. And it's clear from the demo video that they don't have much software built yet. There's just no way they could deliver on their promises with the tiny amount of money raised. I'd be surprised if this is even enough money to cover the time to purchase, box and ship out the 50 re-branded phones to the backers without installing any custom OS. I hope they decide to either just return the money or immediately ship out unmodified phones instead of trying to build their custom software. They just didn't get enough money to do that and it would most likely lead to pain and disappointment on all sides to even try.

wtetzner 7y ago
> It's totally misleading of the article to suggest this phone is a success in any way. It sounded to more like the Kickstarter succeeded, which usually means they just hit their goal. If you read the article, it doesn't claim anywhere that the phone itself is a success. That said, I agree with pretty much everything else you said.
- a012 7y ago
  Say "success on ..." still sounds dishonest and clickbaity. It should be "exceeded milestone" or just "reached their goal".

totaldude87 7y ago

totally unrelated, any of you feel that kickstarter's logo is stale and due for an update?

RegnisGnaw 7y ago

How many Kickstarters have we had for these phones? I will personally bet $1000 this doesn't ship.

blitmap 7y ago

I just want a hand-sized general-purpose tablet with a 5g modem I can plug in when I need a phone. I like the 'security by isolation' aspect of physically unplugging my cellular connectivity. Otherwise I piggyback on Google Voice for texts/calls. Also bring back physical slide-out keyboards like the Motorola Sidekick. :-)

robomartin 7y ago

My first reaction was "No f-ing way!". Then I decided to dig deeper. This is just a Gigaset GS290 with different software: https://www.gigaset.com/hq_en/gigaset-gs290/ https://www.gigaset.com/hq_en/gigaset-gs290/ Current street pricing for this phone appears to be around €269. Volla is getting from €298 to €359 for them (Let's ignore the t-shirts, books, etc.). If we assume they are buying the phones for, say, 25% off, their COGS is around €200 per unit. In other words, they are getting paid between €100 and €159 to develop software and support their version of the phone. In the case of the KS campaign, that amounts to about €5000 and €7950. There are other possible business arrangements that are often negotiated in these kinds of deals. For example, Gigaset manages fulfillment under the Volla brand and they split the profits. That would imply zero upfront costs to Volla. That's the kind of deal I would want to make if I were in their shoes. Don't deal with hardware if you don't have to. Hardware is hard and very expensive. I am going to guess or assume (and we know how dangerous assumptions can be) that the bulk of the software has already been developed and might even be in release-able condition. I make this assumption because they've been at this crowd-sourcing thing for a while. In other words, they have sunk costs. And it might very well be that they don't really have to invest much more to actually deliver these modified COTS phones. In that context the €5K to €8K they just raised (after paying for the hardware) might be fine. It's a signal rather than a bankroll needed to produce phones. They are NOT manufacturing hardware from scratch. At worst they might have custom printed packaging, which costs nothing. I then looked into Gigaset. It's a solid company. Used to be Siemens Home. Now 70% owned by Goldin Group out of Hong Kong (which puts into question just how much is really "Made in Germany"). Still, this is a real company with real products. Therefore, there is no reason to doubt the hardware at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigaset_Communications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigaset_Communications One way I came out of this is to consider the idea that, if the Volla software does not work out for whatever reason users might be able to reprogram their phones with the standard Gigaset software and life goes on. If this is the case, and you like Gigaphone, this deal has basically zero risk. You are paying a relatively small premium to try a proposal that may or may not work. Which is fine. Good project.

aganame 7y ago

Another one to bite the dust.