Jolla Greets The New Year With Bad News On Tablet Deliveries

Jolla is definitely starting the new year with a bang. At the end of 2015, narrowly missing Santa's naughty list, the Finnish startup took stock of their rather tumultuous year and of the challenges up ahead. But sandwiched in between retrospective and prophesy are words that Jolla fans have probably dreaded hearing for a few months now. Good news: some Jolla tablets will still be shipping out to backers who already "paid" for it via crowdfunding. Bad news: not everyone, even those who financially invested in it, will be getting the now mythical mobile device.

It is a compromise of sorts. In Jolla's last public appearance, after it secured enough funding to keep its head afloat, it revealed that it is mulling, among other things, completely scrapping the idea of shipping the Jolla tablets. So at least now it will indeed still ship some of those tablets but only a lucky few will be able to get their hands on it. Who those lucky few are, Jolla isn't saying yet. Probably for safety reasons.

By the time the tablet does ship, however, the device's hardware would be already a bit out of date. The Intel Atom Z3735F would be a generation behind late 2015's Cherry Trail batch, the 2 GB RAM might feel a bit cramped, and the 4,450 mAh battery might be a bit short lived. The 8-inch 2048x1536 display, however, would still be a winner against other tablets of that size today.

Of course, the real appeal of the Jolla tablet is the software, Sailfish OS now at version 2.0. In fact, that is exactly where Jolla is hedging its bets moving forward. The company Isn't really a hardware company, or at least that's how Jolla is redefining itself now despite starting off as a maker of the Jolla Phone. Jolla is seems quite optimistic that its core business of licensing that OS will fly to new heights in 2016, but mostly around corporate customers and government contracts.

So where does that leave Jolla tablet backers? If you're one of the lucky, unrevealed few, you might get a nice package early 2016, no date attached. As for the rest, Jolla says it might have some positive surprises in store, no refund mentioned. Whether it will be able to do that in light of its still rather precarious financial situation, only time will be able to tell.

SOURCE: Jolla