Wileyfox

Wileyfox
Private company
Industry Telecommunications equipment
Founded 2015 (2015)
Founder Nick Muir
Headquarters London, United Kingdom
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people

Nick Muir, (Chief Executive Officer)

Victoria Denman, (Chief Marketing Officer)
Products Smartphones
Website www.wileyfox.com

Wileyfox is a British smartphone manufacturer based in London that sells its products and services exclusively online.

The company is centered on offering highly customizable smartphones to consumers, and as such, its products use Cyanogen OS, which is based on Android OS. Another focus for Wileyfox is providing products that are more affordable than their competitors, whilst not compromising on quality.[1] The company claims that it achieves these lower costs by having a smaller workforce and no legacy devices to support. Wileyfox stated that its use of Cyanogen OS, as well as a commoditization of hardware, will enable the company to differentiate its products from competitors using other implementations of Android, and iOS.[2]

Wileyfox's leadership team is composed of CEO Nick Muir, who is former general manager of Motorola UK, and CMO Victoria Denman, formerly of Microsoft EMEA.

The company was named Challenger Manufacturer of the Year at the Mobile News Awards 2016 held at the London Hilton on Park Lane.[3]

Products

In August 2015, Wileyfox's CEO announced two smartphone products, branded Storm and Swift, running Cyanogen OS 12.1.[2] The Wileyfox Swift was shipped on 17 October 2015 and the Storm was on sale 23 November 2015. Both phones come with dual SIM capability and a 2-year warranty.[4] Additionally, the company offers 12 months extended warranty and unlimited screen replacement service for a fixed annual fee of £9.99/€14.99, depending on the country.

This article provides the actual device specifications, which may differ from specification sheets provided by Wileyfox.

Specification overview

Model SoC CPU GPU Storage capacity Removable storage RAM OS Size Weight Battery Display Rear-facing Camera Front-facing Camera Launch price
Wileyfox Storm Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 Octa core (1.7 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 and 1.0 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53) Adreno 405 32 GB microSD up to 128 GB 3 GB Cyanogen OS 12.1 155.6 x 77.3 x 9.2 mm 157 g (5.54 oz) 2500mAh non-removable Li-Po 5.5" 1920x1080 (400ppi) with laminated glass from LG Electronics 20 MP with f/1.8 aperture 8 MP with LED flash £199
Wileyfox Swift Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 1.2 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 Adreno 306 16 GB microSDXC cards up to 2 TiB (2048 GiB)[5][6] 2 GB Cyanogen OS 12.1.1 141.15 x 71 x 9.37 mm 135 g (4.76 oz) 2500mAh removable Li-Po 5" 1280×720 (294ppi) fully laminated IPS display from JDI with Corning Gorilla Glass 3[7] 13 MP with f/2.0 aperture 5 MP £129

Swift

The Wileyfox Swift is based on the Longcheer L8150, which in turn is based on the Qualcomm Seed reference design. Other notable rebrands of the Longcheer L8150 are several 2nd generation Android One devices. Wileyfox does not presently offer replacement batteries. However, due to several other devices with identical hardware, compatible replacement batteries are available. Video recording in 1080p is supported at up to 30fps; 720p recording is supported at up to 60fps.[8][9] The rear camera sensor is a Samsung S5K3M2 chip with Isocell pixels,[8] which provide better image quality when compared to BSI pixels.[10] The device supports GPS and GLONASS satellite positioning.[11] Two color variants, sandstone black and white, are produced; however, availability varies by country. At its time of release, the Swift was the cheapest Cyanogen OS device available in Western Europe.

The device was well received by the public and media, however, comments have been made about the micro-USB port being too recessed (preventing many third-party cables from properly locking in the port). The plug shaft length of cables supplied by Wileyfox exceeds the minimum length mandated by the USB specification by approximately 0,5mm.[12] Wileyfox's cables do not meet USB specification requirements in other aspects, and as of 2016-01-15, Wileyfox did not pass the compliance requirements to use USB logos or trademarks.[13] Because the metal ring holding the rear camera lens has sharp edges, moving the device on a comparatively soft surface, such as a wooden table, easily leaves scratch marks. The accessory clip-on covers available from Wileyfox alleviate this issue by protruding beyond the metal ring. GPS and GLONASS performance is fast and accurate, for early production dates.[14] However, a metallic adhesive layer on the inside of the back cover was added in later production batches, for a purpose not known to the public. For phones produced with this layer GPS and GLONASS reception can be poor,[15] unless it is manually peeled off.

In addition to the officially supported, proprietary firmware Cyanogen OS, its basis, the Android derivative CyanogenMod, supports the device.[16] The first release for the Swift is version 13.0, which was made available on 2016-03-16, simultaneously with the first wave of CyanogenMod 13 releases.[16][17]

Storm

The Wileyfox Storm is a 5.5" FHD smartphone based around a unibody design. Like the Swift, the Storm uses a 2500mAh battery, but the unibody construction makes the battery non-removable. A side mounted slot accessed by a pinhole reveals a tray that allows a combination of a Micro and Nano SIM card or a MicroSD card and a Micro SIM card. The front facing camera is 8MP and benefits from a LED flash for 'selfies'. The rear camera is a 20MP Sony EXMOR IMX220 sensor capable of 1080p and 90fps slow motion capture. The device supports GPS and GLONASS satellite positioning.[11] Two color variants, sandstone black and white, are produced; however, availability varies by country.

Accessories

References

  1. ↑ Woods, B (2015-08-25). "Wileyfox launches its first Cyanogen OS smartphones, the 5" Swift and 5.5" Storm". The Next Web, Inc. Retrieved 2015-10-20.
  2. 1 2 Gilbert, D (2015-08-25). "Wileyfox pins smartphone hopes on Cyanogen software and budget pricing". International Business Times Co. Ltd. Retrieved 2015-10-20.
  3. ↑ Wileyfox. "Wileyfox Wins Challenger Manufacturer Award of the Year -- LONDON, March 14, 2016 /PR Newswire UK/ --". www.prnewswire.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-03-18.
  4. ↑ Wileyfox. "FAQs". Wileyfox. Retrieved 2015-10-20.
  5. ↑ "Wileyfox Swift Review: On sale now – and why you should get one – JM Communications". JM Communications.
  6. ↑ See table 3-21 on page 74 of https://developer.qualcomm.com/download/sd410/snapdragon-410-processor-device-specification.pdf
  7. ↑ "Wileyfox - Swift - Affordable Smartphone technology".
  8. 1 2 "S5K3M2 - Mobile CIS - Mobile Camera - Samsung Semiconductor Global Website". Samsung Semiconductor.
  9. ↑ "Snapdragon 410 Processor Device Specification" (PDF). Qualcomm Developer Network.
  10. ↑ "Samsung Launches ISOCELL: Innovative Image Sensor Technology for Premium Mobile Devices". Samsung Semiconductor.
  11. 1 2 "Wileyfox". Retrieved 4 March 2016.
  12. ↑ Figure 4-8 on page 21 of the Universal Serial Bus Micro-USB Cables and Connectors Specification Revision 1.01, http://mgvs.org/public/shema/datasheet/usb_20/Micro-USB_final/Micro-USB_1_01.pdf
  13. ↑ Wileyfox has no USB Vendor ID, which is a prerequisite to undergo compliance testing; http://www.usb.org/developers/logo_license/
  14. ↑ Evaluation with early production date being visible: http://www.engadget.com/2015/11/30/wileyfox-swift-storm-review/
  15. ↑ http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/wileyfox-swift-1302600/review/3
  16. 1 2 https://web.archive.org/web/20160326112356/https://download.cyanogenmod.org/?device=crackling&type=snapshot
  17. ↑ http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/cm-13-0-release-1

External links

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