Volla makes smartphones that support both Android and Ubuntu Touch operating systems. The company launched a crowdfunding campaign for its first phone in 2019 and began shipping that phone a year later. Since then, the German company has expanded its product lineup and Volla currently offers a few different phones and a bunch of accessories.
Soon Volla may also begin selling its first tablet. A Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for the first Volla Tablet is set to begin in April, 2024. Update: The Kickstarter campaign launched April 17, and the tablet is expected to ship to backers in October, 2024.
The Volla Tablet will have a 12.3 inch, QHD display, 12GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and a MediaTek Helio G99 processor with two ARM Cortex-A76 CPU cores up to 2.2 GHz, six Cortex-A55 cores up to 2 GHz, and Mali-G57 MC2 graphics.
It has an aluminum body, quad speakers, and support for touch and pressure-sensitive pen input as well as a detachable keyboard.
In addition to WiFi and Bluetooth, the tablet will also support 4G LTE cellular networks and features dual SIM support.
Other features are expected to include a 10,000 mAh battery, 13MP + 5MP rear cameras, and a 5MP front-facing camera.
Like the company’s phones, the Volla Tablet will ship with Volla OS, which is a custom version of Android with a “Springboard” launcher that lets you send a message, start a phone call, or launch apps by typing into a text field and other custom apps.
But Volla says users can also choose to install Ubuntu Touch “as an alternative and second operating system with the Multi Boot function.” Not only does this allow you to run mobile, touch-friendly applications, but thanks to the tablet’s 12.3 inch display you could also attach a keyboard and/or mouse to run supported desktop applications.
Volla hasn’t announced pricing or an estimated ship date yet, but we should learn more when crowdfunding begins.
Update: Crowdfunding prices start at around $560 + (expensive) shipping for global customers or about $630 + $20 for shipping to backers in Europe.
This can be interesting depending on price (the lower the better, but no more than $500), ports (3.5mm phone, micro SD and USB-C are mandatory for me) and level of Linux support
Not really hopeful about price since it’s going to be made (or at least designed/managed) from Germany, and German stuff tends to be expensive.
Also not hopeful on Linux support, because MediaTek has a truly bad reputation in this regard (much worse than eg Qualcomm) with dismal upstream support, which forces vendors to patch the kernel themselves and users tend to be left with outdated, barely working systems.
But let’s see, already gave them an email so they can let me know when it launches. Hope springs eternal…
I hate the Android style clockface as a choice to advertise the product… It already makes me distrust it. I hate the ‘aesthetics’ of Google’s Material Junk or whatever the hell it is called these days… Corporate art styles and the ways of such institutions are always puke worthy at best.
Then make your own Android skin.
I did bro. It’s now a blank black screen with no animations. Now all I got to do is get rid of those annoying Android/Google cartoons of people with the overgrown limbs and fat bodies and I have no clue how to do it for fugly individual system apps without rooting.
Please take your meds.
Only if it has good stylus support & does not exceed $1,200 after tax
@liliputing_ this is interesting, glad to see more tablets in the Linux space even if it is via halium. I’m currently using a pinetab 2 for my Linux tablet needs but this seems way faster.