Ex-Nokia Engineers Launch A Linux Smartphone That Runs Android Apps

Jolla smartphone uses an OS based on the Nokia's former MeeGo project and will be sold in 135 countries

Just what the world needs -- another smartphone platform. From Nokia, no less.

For two years now, Jolla, a crew of ex-Nokia engineers based in both Finland and Hong Kong, has been working on a smartphone powered by Sailfish, a variant of Nokia's previously abandoned, Linux-based MeeGo OS. Now the first Jolla phone is ready to ship and will go on sale tonight in Finland (pre-orders were €399), with many other territories to follow afterward.

Not much is known about the phone yet, other than that it uses a dual-core processor, sports 16GB of memory and a spare SD card slot, and eschews buttons (save for possibly a volume rocker) in favor of a gesture-based UI. As for Sailfish, it's billed as an "independent, open, partner-friendly" mobile OS that uses the Mer project (itself derived from the earlier MeeGo) for its UI.