Could someone who knows say how this compares to the Sony Xperia running Jolla / Sailfish? I guess that Jolla contains some binary blobs in the kernel still whereas this is fully free.
Sailfish OS uses Android driver blobs via libhybris on the Xperia. I guess on the PinePhone either open drivers or native compiled blobs are in use.
But from the user perspective likely the main change from the Xperia would be the missing Android emulation layer. This is only available on officially supported devices, which the xperias (X, XA2, 10). On community ports, which Sailfish OS for the PinePhone is at the moment, the Android emulation layer is not available. I guess that could change if there is enough demand to roll it in to the Sailfish X program, like the Gemini PDA.
BTW, other than the Android emulator a and two more things (MS Exchange, typing prediction) the community ports are pretty much identical to the officially supported devices, all native apps will work, etc.
But from the user perspective likely the main change from the Xperia would be the missing Android emulation layer. This is only available on officially supported devices, which the xperias (X, XA2, 10). On community ports, which Sailfish OS for the PinePhone is at the moment, the Android emulation layer is not available. I guess that could change if there is enough demand to roll it in to the Sailfish X program, like the Gemini PDA.
BTW, other than the Android emulator a and two more things (MS Exchange, typing prediction) the community ports are pretty much identical to the officially supported devices, all native apps will work, etc.