Go and check the link, but essentially:

  • small
  • 2023 release (Android 13)
  • HEADPHONE JACK (I was almost sold here)
  • NFC
  • 8GB RAM (that is powerful)
  • 256 GB internal storage
  • Dual SIM or SIM+MicroSD
  • IR BLASTER (whatttttttt)
  • LED indicators (front AND BACK)
  • fingerprint scanner
  • face ID
  • FM Radio
  • PROGRAMMABLE BUTTON (ok I’m in love already STOPPP)

I mean… this list is mindblowing. So…

What’s the downside?

Honestly, you can go and check all reviews… but this phone is virtually perfect for the size, the only issue I have is that the screen is a bit too tiny, 3 inches, and 480p, and I think this will make many people run away.

It should make me look elsewhere also… but where? Any other small phone with a bigger screen is pretty bad, old, etc… and I really needed a new phone, so I realised this was an opportunity to commit to the cause, and buy and hopefully push this form factor from Unihertz to mainstream brands.

Hopefully one day we can get one with a slightly bigger screen, I believe 4 inches and 1080p would be brutal. But for now… I think I’ve found my new phone. In fact, I bought it 3 hours after knowing its existance.

If you are not sold yet…

Go check reviews on YouTube (example). Honestly, you’ll see every reviewer falls in love with the device, even non-small phone lovers. It looks like it performs pretty well, it’s decently fast, battery is solid, screen is bright and colorful, the LEDs are really useful, even Face ID (which I’ll probably disable) is quick, it does not heat up at all, and even photos are pretty decent…

And it’s something like 200 $. Come on. What a deal.

Will report back.

So, what do you think?

  • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    And like all of these novelty phones, it has no 5G support and extremely narrow 4G band support, which means this will be nearly worthless for users in North America. And it will quickly become even more worthless as carriers are actively discontinuing their existing 3G and 4G bands.

    This’ll work great for most people who don’t want to actually use it as a phone. I.e. it’d make a killer media playback device, remote control, or tiny PDA.

    I was interested in their Titan a while ago but it, like all of their phones, has the same problem. There is no sense whatsoever in buying a new phone in 2024 that has such piddling network support.

    • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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      7 months ago

      Nobody is disabling 4G bands except the bands they lied about being 4G in the first place?

    • unknowing8343@discuss.tchncs.deOP
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      7 months ago

      4G is here to stay for a long while. It’s fast enough for 99% of cases and 5G only covers very small areas, and will only be used (at least for now) on crowded areas where it makes sense.

      Also, this device has 480p screen… I think 4G is pretty fine.

      • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
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        7 months ago

        5G covers the same area as 4G on a given frequency. They’re ostensibly the same technology on the air interface. The original name of 5G was “LTE2” in fact. Carriers are moving to 5G standalone where all voice, text, data are on 5G. In the US, T-Mobile has 5G on their band 71, which is 600MHz, likewise AT&T runs 5G on their 850MHz band. These bands can reach many miles away from a cell site. I regularly have seen a 5G connection to a site 8 miles away from me, for example.

        The coverage will be practically the same as 4G, but slightly worse than 3G. (Which was also true for 4G.)

        Carriers will likely do a slow roll over the next 5-10 years migrating 4G bands to 5G until only one or two are left on 4G for legacy devices. Not really an if, as much as a when.

      • accideath@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Here in Germany two out of three mobile networks have almost full 5G coverage. 3G is already mostly dead. 4G will stay for a little longer but it’ll be replaced by 5G entirely, as soon as the carriers deem it financially worthwhile to ditch the older tech.

        • unknowing8343@discuss.tchncs.deOP
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          7 months ago

          I don’t think 4G will get outdated in the next 5 years considering that 4G devices are still being launched today… And also considering that most people are just connected to Wi-Fi anyways…

          I think we can be fine with this phone for 4/5 years and the Jelly Star 5G will probably be out there when the time comes.

    • graymess@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      The exact reason I opted not to get this phone. I kind of don’t understand why so many lesser known brands have such limited bands on their phones. Does it add that much to the cost?

  • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Headphone jacks, IR blasters, AND an FM radio? This phone never left the rad days of android.

      • Syn_Attck@lemmy.today
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        7 months ago

        Please do update after you’ve used it as your daily driver for a month! Would love love love to hear about it.

        Also if OP posts an update and someone happens to see this comment, will you reply here or tag me? TIA!

  • Alice@hilariouschaos.com
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    7 months ago

    Unrelated, but I just want to say thank you for actually posting content that is relevant to the community. It’s enjoyable and appreciated.

    • unknowing8343@discuss.tchncs.deOP
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      7 months ago

      I have not forgotten. And this is not so much swimming upstream but rather, as Captain America said, it’s more like planting yourself like a tree and say “no, you move”.

    • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
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      7 months ago

      It’s actually a bit more subtle than consumers not buying them.

      When LTE came out, it was inefficient and used lower frequencies than cell phones used before. So they needed big phones that they could stick big batteries and antennas in.

      Smaller phones existed, but often lacked features of big phones, and battery life was terrible due to the aforementioned power consumption problem. Likewise, reception suffered.

      Now, the power problem has been solved and LTE uses less power than CDMA techs did. Antenna and radio design has improved to mitigate reception issues so smaller antennae don’t hurt as much as they once did. However, now phones have giant camera modules in them and antennae for a plethora of services and features they think people want like UWB, NFC, wireless charging. (They all have their place, just stating this because they aren’t “essential”.)

      People stopped buying small phones because they were “terrible” by comparison. Then manufacturers claimed people didn’t want small phones, so they stopped making them. Now we are stuck because all the junk they throw in phones need all that space.

      Tl;dr: the wireless industry killed small phones and blamed consumers.

    • warm@kbin.earth
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      7 months ago

      More so they upsold people to the bigger models. If they had exactly the same specifications other than size, I bet a much larger set of people buy the smaller one. The phone in this post does look a bit too small though.

        • warm@kbin.earth
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          I mean other than screen size and battery size, they could have the same specs. It was a theoretical though, people like buying features they don’t need or just like to have the best they can, even if that means having a larger phone. I think anything past ~6 inch screens is just way too large, but some people enjoy their phablets, so I wouldn’t like to see that option disappear for them either.

    • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Nah, OEMs had to make them larger to provide sufficient cooling surface area for the battery and cpu.

      That was the first driver, and then marketing took over to make larger phones seem like a better choice.

      Now that Android is much more power efficient (and the hardware is too), we could have smaller phones with only a modest reduction in performance.

      Stuff like ceramic or glass backs were also as much about cooling, but marketed as a cool feature.

      Ceramic and glass transfer heat far better than plastic. So when you’re running your flagship phablet at max to play a game, it can shed that heat much more readily, and also charge the battery at 15watts.

  • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Wow Headphone jack, programmable button, IR blaster…

    Honestly, I love having a large phone because I have fat fingers and bad eyesight. I would absolutely buy this phone if it were larger. I might buy it anyway and learn to live with a small screen.

  • Dolphinfreetuna@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I didn’t find any information on long term software security support, and I don’t need phones to chase the latest Android releases, but the security updates are important to me.

    I was excited when I bought Palm phone, but they didn’t support the security software soon after.

    • krash@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      This. I asked this question on unihertz kickstarter campaign page, and their answer was avoiding the question.

      Major android versions are nice, but security updates are a must, or you’ll be taking huge risks with the data on your phone.

  • the_weez@midwest.social
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    7 months ago

    My buddy at work was looking for the smallest smart phone he could get, I helped him find the Jelly Star. He has been using it for a few months, and he loves it. Fits in his 5th pocket on most jeans and it’s a real head turner, everyone is confused and thinks it’s a dumb phone

  • Bloody Harry@feddit.de
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    7 months ago

    Such a fun phone, I absolutely love it. It does everything a modern mid to lower mid range phone does. But typing is heavy. I put a custom Thumbkey fork on it, and now it’s… okay :D

  • metaphortune@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I love the idea! If there was good support from something like GrapheneOS or /e/OS I would be looking at one of these.

  • glimse@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    For me, that camera is a dealbreaker. I take a lot of pictures so the #1 feature I’m looking for is camera quality

    Otherwise that thing looks awesome

  • DaGeek247@fedia.io
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    7 months ago

    When you report back;

    It says you can switch a sim slot for an sd card slot. Could you choose to do two sd card slots instead? This looks great as a small mp3 player.

    • notaviking@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I know this is opposite of what you want, but I used to melt the plastic on the SIM, take the chip and with a small piece of glue place it on the micro SD card, thus two simcards and extra storage

  • BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    A bummer that Asus dropped the compact zenfone this year… Hope they bring it back, maybe every other year