Wileyfox
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| Private company | |
| Industry | Telecommunications equipment |
| Founded | 2015 |
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
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Area served
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Worldwide |
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Key people
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Naeem Walji, Mike Coombes, Jason Coppin |
| Products | Smartphones |
| Website | www |
Wileyfox is a British smartphone manufacturer founded in 2015.
Wileyfox aims to provide products that are more affordable than their competitors, whilst not compromising on quality. The company claims that by having a smaller workforce and with no legacy devices to support, they’re able to sell Wileyfox devices for lower prices. Wileyfox stated that the commoditisation of hardware will enable them to differentiate its products from competitors using other Android derivates or iOS.
Wileyfox's CEO, Mike Coombes, has worked for sales divisions at HTC and Nokia, and CMO Naeem Walji.
This article states the actual device specifications, which may differ from specification sheets provided by Wileyfox.
These devices were announced in August 2015, originally running Cyanogen OS 12.1, with sales and shipments starting later that year. Both devices have dual SIM capability. The Swift is codenamed crackling, whereas the codename of Storm is kipper.
The Wileyfox Swift is a fully custom design, although with similarities to the Qualcomm Seed reference design and by extension many rebadging designs, like the Longcheer L8150. This makes it comparable to 2nd generation Android One devices. Video recording in 1080p is supported at up to 30fps; 720p recording is supported at up to 60fps. The rear camera sensor is a Samsung S5K3M2 chip with Isocell pixels, which provide better image quality when compared to BSI pixels. The device supports GPS and GLONASS satellite positioning. 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. Although not initially available, as of late 2016 replacement batteries are now sold by the manufacturer on their website.
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. 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. 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, and are offered in black and red orange. While these cases protect the back, rear camera lens and sides, they do not protrude to protect the screen. The device dimensions change to 73mm width, 143mm height, and 10mm thickness. GPS and GLONASS performance is fast and accurate, for early production dates. 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, unless it is manually peeled off.
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Wikipedia