Intex Aqua Ace
 

Launched 10 days ago. IMO this will be the Sailfish phone. If not, it should be.

http://intex.in/aqua-ace/index.html

Specs, looks and price ought to be able to sell a few units in India.

Launch frame squares with the expected October launch of their Sailfish phone ...

I doubt Jolla will be able to meet that time frame though, especially as this (or alternative) will likely be the first MTK adaption.

Re: Intex Aqua Ace
 

Er, just who is expecting an October launch? Intex themselves seemed to be indicating an end-of-year launch in their press release.

Also, the Ace appears to be using a Mediatek processor, whereas Jolla's own press release states:

So, I would expect the first Intex Sailfish phones to be using Snapdragon processors...

EDIT: Sorry, I missed that you already mentioned the Ace is using a Mediatek processor. But still, I'd be surprised Intex would choose hardware that Jolla hadn't targeted for their first Sailfish phone.

Re: Intex Aqua Ace
 

That MediaTek hardware barely beats the Snapdragon 400 series; definitely middle of the road where 6xx and 8xx series are heavier hitters.

In this day and age of "specs mean far too much", that's something to consider. Thanks for linking this though... who knows, it does share a lot with the incoming Intex Jolla phone though. Looks good.

Re: Intex Aqua Ace
 

Intex have stated more than once on Twitter that it will launch in October. The last time being on September the 12th. The last time, whomever was operating the Twitter account said they'd get back to the user, then 15 minutes later (presumably after checking), gave that answer. Like I say, I have zero expectation of this coming to pass. On past form, Jolla might take another 6 months to finish work on HAD

Qualcomm would be absolutely stupid. More expensive SoCs and platform. Considerably lower performance and features at any given pricepoint. In India, features and performance within very restrictive price constraints are paramount. Intex, for the former reasons are an almost exclusively MTK shop.

If the Sailfish phone doesn't share EVERYTHING with an Android sister-phone, again cost is increased and chances of success are lowered, especially as there'll be no chance of people who bought an Android phone trying SF.

Edit: Intex may no longer have ANY Qualcomm phones. Opened the product pages for the first ~25 smartphones that they currently do. All but 2 were Mediatek. The remaining 2 were Spredtrum. No Qualcomm.

Re: Intex Aqua Ace
 

It's much cheaper (and better featured) than the SD400 series. Also current 4xx series are heavily disfunctional and actually slower than the preceding series in many cases. They've been an absolute unmitigated disaster for Qualcomm. Far worse than 6xx and 810 overheating / memory issues and marketshare bleed.

Re: Intex Aqua Ace
 

my main interest in intex are, will it support the other half?
and will it use same battery as jolla phone does?

Re: Intex Aqua Ace
 

No, it would not. MTK brings nothing to FOSS community and does not respect licenses. That alone is good enough for me to never buy anything with mediatek inside. Performance wise, they are not on par with qualcomm in the same segment. And they are failing a lot more often then those with qualcomm SOCs. Cheap phones are also popular here and I know more than enough people that had issues with MTK based phones of different brands, including "premium" ones so that it really makes a pattern. Not that qualcomm is perfect but it does worth that extra money. Especially when it comes to android based device.
Not sure if it will be available outside of India, but if it will be MTK based than I don't even care.

And, BTW, they have nicer phones than this iphone wannabe. Something more squareish like original Jolla.

Re: Intex Aqua Ace
 

You're completely delusional. They absolutely aren't worth it, especially as the 41x series, as I say, are often slower than the preceding 40x series and have huge problems. There's a reason why Qualcomm have almost completely lost the low end in a very short frame of time. Performance, features, price and reliability are TERRIBLE. You're correct that they're not on par with QC on performance .. they significantly exceed their performance.

The 61x series have problems too, and using 61x would make the Sailfish phone by far Intex's most expensive (and likely lowest margin) phone. Why on earth would they do that? Also, given the minimum order numbers from their Chinese or Taiwanese OEM, why the hell would they risk it when there won't be an Android analogue? 8xx isn't even a consideration, and again you could get something just as fast or faster for half the price from MTK.

Why do you think they've gone from a minority Qualcomm shop (10-15% of their phones) to seemingly none?

Ubuntu Touch phones don't seem to have an issue working with MTK, and the full source for those phones are available (unlike 'open' Jolla) ... and available online - again unlike Jolla. If Jolla are adapting MTK hardware, they'd be wise to inspect what Canonical / bQ / Meizu have done.

It would be madness if it did. Their phone needs to be a direct analogue to an Android sister phone, per Ubuntu Touch's 2 bQs and 1 Meizu. There's considerable risk for no reward, doing something custom for Sailfish.

Also, the battery's shite and low capacity, and outside of Dirk there's been practically no support for ToH. Furthermore, why on earth would they support either? There've been very low sales of the Jolla Phone, and there are very few active users ... why do something costly and risky to at best please a hard core of a couple of hundred people who demand ToH (and battery? really?) compatibility?

Re: Intex Aqua Ace
 

P.S. I was wrong. They were still saying as of September the 28th that October was launch month. I'm guessing there will be total silence now until whenever it does actually launch, if it does.

Re: Intex Aqua Ace
 

and that aqua ace is roughly around 180€.
For sailfish device with snapdragon 600 they said it would cost around 15K rupee and that is some 25€ more. Of course, this is unofficial since the phone isn't out yet (if that even happens) but IMO not that much more.
Sure, from android benchmarking data MTK is better but sailfish is not android and benchmarks does not tell everything. I would gladly pay 25€ more for qualcomm.