Small phone lovers... our era is not over. Yesterday I discovered the Unihertz Jelly Star. I fell in love. I will be reporting back. ( www.unihertz.com )

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?

MonkderDritte ,

North america only frequencies, just so you know.

Sanctus ,
@Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

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

unknowing8343 OP ,

Isn't it crazy? When I found it I couldn't believe my eyes. I mean... Hopefully it does not disappoint when I get it

Syn_Attck ,

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!

unknowing8343 OP ,

Is there a RemindMe bot yet on Lemmy?

Syn_Attck ,

Not that I know of unfortunately.

!Remindme 1 day

themeatbridge ,

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.

ElectroLisa ,
@ElectroLisa@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I think Xiaomi Redmi Note 13 Pro has a jack and IR, iirc, not sure about the programmable button

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

I realised this was an opportunity to commit to the cause, and buy and hopefully push this form factor from Unihertz to mainstream brands.

You seem to forget that all phones used to be small. They didn't stop making them because OEMs didn't like them. They stopped making them because consumers didn't buy them.

So while I appreciate the effort, I fear it is in vain. You're swimming upstream.

FigMcLargeHuge ,

Yeah, this seems like a targeted ad written by some llm. I have a larger phone and still cannot stand the size of the "keyboard" on it.. Can only imagine how fun it would be typing on that screen, even if the keyboard was fullscreen.

unknowing8343 OP ,

Oh, damn, so I write like AI, should I take that as compliment or criticism?

I am just a dude with small hands that did not know this phone existed until now. And I fell in love. That's it.

FigMcLargeHuge ,

I guess a compliment. Sorry, this last year or so has made me very skeptical of anything I see online that seems a little spontaneous. So many companies trying to act like bros and just find something amazing they have to tell us about. Unfortunately it's clouding up the posts where people actually do find something amazing. I like this, and would actually look into it if it had better comments on the U.S. coverage or bands. Still not sure how I would do with the keyboard, but I do like the small form factor. Apologies again if you are a real person. In the meantime I am going to need you to click on every picture that contains a gopher. :)

unknowing8343 OP ,

No worry, I understand. As I said, I will report back, and I am even thinking of uploading videos about this, specially if it turns out as good as it seems. I hate that neither MKBHD, LTT, JerryRig... No one showed this bad boy while they all cried that small phones are dying... Well, now I am starting to believe they might be part of the problem...

unknowing8343 OP ,

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 ,

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.

dual_sport_dork ,
@dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world avatar

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.

snausagesinablanket ,
@snausagesinablanket@lemmy.world avatar

it has no 5G support

Ty for clarifying that.

MrScottyTay ,

I'm in the UK and I've not yet had a 5G phone. We're also only having 3G turned off in the immediate future

Alto ,
@Alto@kbin.social avatar

That would likely be why they specified North America

MrScottyTay ,

I'm just adding that it's not the de facto just because it is in the US

TheOctonaut ,

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

unknowing8343 OP ,

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 ,

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 ,

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.

Mnem667 ,

I can tell you that it works fine using T-Mobile. It picks up the same bands as my LG V60 (with 5g turned off). I can't speak about any other carrier, though.

graymess ,

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?

Dolphinfreetuna ,

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 ,

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.

Alice ,
@Alice@hilariouschaos.com avatar

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

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