Jelly Star – The Smallest Android 13 Smartphone | Hacker News Reader

Jelly Star – The Smallest Android 13 Smartphone

unihertz.com

315 pointsf_allwein268 comments

Part of the problem with this brand is that this "Android 13 Smartphone" will probably stay that forever. Updates are very very minimal.

I have their first jelly and it didn't even get the upgrade they promised.

Other than that, it's not so bad. Swype-typing makes a small keyboard still useful. But the updates really are the achilles heel here.

This is not as big a problem as you make it out to be due to the availability of alternative Android distributions. A quick search shows that LineageOS 20 already runs well on this device which means it should be possible to keep it up to date for a long time. I'm using a Samsung SIIIneo from 2014 with LineageOS 18.1 (Android 11) for which LineageOS 20 is available as well while Samsung dropped support at Android 4.4. Since I prefer the 'clean Android' experience over whatever vendor embellishments have been added I tend to switch to LineageOS as soon as I get a new (or "new") device anyway. I'm using LineageOS as an example but there are plenty of alternative AOSP-derived distributions for those who want something else.

What I'd actually like to see is an updated Motorola Defy [1], a waterproof/shockproof device with a 3.7" screen, a user-changeable battery, headphone jack, a good loud speaker, uSD card slot, etc. Just give it enough battery capacity to last for a week with mild use like the Defy+ offered, enough memory and storage to last for 10 years of Android development and make sure the bootloader can be unlocked by the user. That is one device I'd buy as a 'working' phone (i.e. a device which can withstand the rigours of farm life), what I use that Samsung SIIIneo for now. It already survived three falls from a 8.5m high barn roof while I was installing solar panels, my daughter's Defy+ survived going through a full wash/spin cycle when she left it in her trouser pocket. That is what I want from a phone, not some silly 'AI' gimmicks.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Defy

I used LineageOS on a number of devices for a number of years, and had to upgrade to a new device every year due to either performance, bugs, or official support being dropped. Can't tell you the number of various bugs I ran into that completely made it unusable, until the point I just started getting two of every device to be able to have a backup, and be able to do clean version updates.

Being able to just get one device and use it for 5+ years is such a relief, and gives me a lot less to worry about day to day. Custom roms are best left to tinkerers who are okay with their device randomly breaking with no rhyme or reason, and spending hours either trying to fix it or reflash/restore to stock and set everything back up again.

You got unlucky with your devices (having unfortunate hardware compatibility) or the ROM maintainers (being inexperienced or just not good). LOS is really great and rarely has any issues coming from the pure source of the OS.

My experience mirrors yours. I have it on two tablets and they're the most stable and lightweight in terms of a software experience of anything I've ever used.

I can’t even imagine what brands they’re buying where support is dropped that quickly.

Motorola dropped support for the moto g within 6 months of me buying it. I got either one or zero android version updates iirc.

“A year and a half of OS updates” rapidly becomes 6 months of OS updates if you don’t buy on launch day, wait for prices to drop a little bit and inventory to normalize, etc.

I run Lineage on a Pixel 3a xl (no google), and a OnePlus 5 (mind the gapps).

I have found both to be completely stable.

My first Cyanogen phone was an HTC Incredible, and I don't remember any stability problems.

Same. LineageOS is what allowed me to use devices I liked for as long as the hardware lasted, instead of being forced to buy the new crap.

That’s the first I’ve heard of the S III Neo. What an odd product. Came out 2 years after the original S III, in practically the same chassis, but with a few parts swapped.

I wonder why it was made.

Popping some cheaper drop in replacement chips in an already existing product sounds quite cost effrctive to me :)

I find it hard to universally recommend LineageOS because it can be a true 'your mileage may vary' situation depending what you use it for, which is fair enough for the fruits of a volunteer project. It's great if your aim is to get an old phone on a more recent release, but as they're not pretending that they're official firmware some apps won't work with that if they want the integrity check. Those apps can be broadly useful, and the whole reason you're updating in the first place.

Sorry to hear that. Like others in this thread, LOS has been great for me (Essential phone model)

If you use apps that require security (like payment apps) you might run into problems here. My company might need to exclude phones like this one soon because more and more CVEs are coming up. Alternative ROMs are often not the solution here because Play Integrity and Key Attestation no longer work.

For general messaging and browsing this hardware likely work quite well.

Btw I had the Motorola Defy and flashed it every month with a new ROM back in the days :D

I wouldn't use the phrase "require security" to describe such apps, since to fulfill what they actually require, you often end up being less secure. For example, most such apps will be fine with you running them on a phone with 20 critical CVEs from a year ago, but not on a phone that you unlocked the bootloader of to install a version of Android that fixes said CVEs.

The challenge is trust, can you trust that an third party ROM hasn't been tampered with, and that third party maintaining the build for your device is often some guy on the internet you probably only know as a pseudonym. It might be the latest version, it might have some modifications that 'distro' of ROM applies to all their builds, some required per-device changes to make it work, but what degree of confidence is there that nothing else changed and the OS is lying to them?

The same applies to most open source efforts, but I think it's understandable for institutions with consequences to what their apps do (like handling money and bank accounts) to opt out of potentially being undermined by the OS when they have the means. There's also elements of phones being general purpose computers now vs locked down appliances, GPL3 vs tivoization, and so on.

But if you're going to worry that a custom ROM might be compromised, shouldn't you also be worried that you know that the stock ROM contains unfixed critical security vulnerabilities? Wouldn't any reasonable argument to forbid the former also forbid the latter?

I'd say when something like a bank is involved, they need something more substantial to point at for their insurance arrangements if/when something goes wrong. "Our app allowed a $5000 transfer on the user's stock Samsung" is easier to grasp the state of the system they're playing in than a user modified one.

Also knowing what security risks are in play with N year old OS lets them decide if they want to allow the user to proceed or work around. Some applications are more aggressive in what version OS they need and that's a driver for upgrading phones, pushing the OEM to keep a phone in support for longer, or third party ROMs if this catch22 wasn't part of it.

> I'd say when something like a bank is involved, they need something more substantial to point at for their insurance arrangements if/when something goes wrong. "Our app allowed a $5000 transfer on the user's stock Samsung" is easier to grasp the state of the system they're playing in than a user modified one. Also knowing what security risks are in play with N year old OS lets them decide if they want to allow the user to proceed or work around. Some applications are more aggressive in what version OS they need

I've seen plenty of apps need a minimum major version of Android, but never any that have needed a minimum security patch level.

There are cases every day where an employee of a company can demonstrate that A is at least as good as B, but trying to get permission to do B is impossible.

There's simply no universe where an employee at a typical F500 company is going to be able to convince the IT team that they should permit custom code on phones even if the logic of the argument is sound. Even if they found the person, persuaded them, got them to persuade their management, in house legal teams, compliance teams etc., I seriously doubt whether the MDM solutions (eg InTune) would even have a checkbox to override the policy on one phone. To say nothing of the ongoing cost of tracking that one employee's specific setting.

This also plays a bit into the argument of why integrating your personal device into the corpo ecosystem of your employer is not a decision to be taken lightly.

> There's simply no universe where an employee at a typical F500 company is going to be able to convince the IT team that they should permit custom code on phones even if the logic of the argument is sound.

That's my point: I know that's how it is today, but the reasons for it being that way are illogical.

> If you use apps that require security (like payment apps) you might run into problems here

Works fine for me, two banking apps and two digital ID apps running on a Google-free device. About those CVEs, you do realise LineageOS offers OTA updates? Not everyone will install them but the same goes for vendor updates, probably even more so since those sometimes sneak in unwanted 'features'.

If 'your company' 'might need to exclude [my devices]' I will just steer away from 'your company' just like I steered away from the many 'Windows only' companies. I survive, nay I thrive without having to use Windows and the same goes for Google et al.

Nae kings, nae lairds, nae quinns, we are free men!

It's only not a problem if you don't use banking apps, or anything else that cares about SafetyNet. I'm not willing to install something like Lineage and then figure out which brittle, unreliable hack will get SafetyNet to pass. Certainly not for my daily driver.

Sure, some people don't care about things like Google Pay, but many many many of us do. I really miss the days of CyanogenMod, before SafetyNet was a thing, when I never worried about losing access to functionality I care about when installing a third-party Android OS.

Even though the Pixel 8 is larger than I'd like, and the Pixel line has its share of problems, I'm thrilled that my new phone will get 7 years of security updates, and probably -- hopefully, if Google doesn't renege -- OS updates for those 7 years as well. That's incredibly important to me.

Former SGS3 user here (non-neo, AFAIK). IIRC Samsung only managed one year of upgrades for it. The device had a, for that time, nice AMOLED screen and some flagship features. Custom ROM I ran on it (CM, probably, back in the days, or LOS) rather slow. And you get no baseband firmware/SoC upgrades anymore, since like 2015 or so. After this debacle I said never again Samsung smartphone. I gave mine away to Fairphone (they like to have smartphones of competitors to study design pros and cons).

They managed to lose all of their records of my purchase of one of their phones, directly from their store.

I couldn't have sent it back for a warranty repair if I'd needed, they deleted my entire account. I even have email confirmations for the order from their system, it's kind of amazing.

That said, I'd still buy another phone from them. This Atom L is years old and still has a three day battery life and no physical damage. The biggest issue with this brand in my experience is simply that it's not compatible with a bunch of phone networks for reasons beyond me.

Verizon, for instance, will simply not work with my IMEI. That's a hard fail for a lot of people, and it prevents me from using it with most of those cheap piggyback carriers too.

https://www.verizon.com/sales/nextgen/byod/enterDeviceIMEI.h...

> They managed to lose all of their records of my purchase of one of their phones, directly from their store.

That seems super convenient for them from a warranty perspective.

Honestly, I don't care about feature upgrades in a device like this, which, invariably, degrade experience, rather than improve it.

I would much rather the industry moved to focus on security upgrades.

Keep the device reasonably updated while it's on sale (either current or previous feature version max), then promise extended support for N years, where any critical security issues are patched, and that's all.

I especially don't need the latest OS features, when 95% of the value is from apps that can be upgraded independently from the OS.

I want open source OSes, giving the possibility of hobbyist communities that upgrade on their own

current open source android roms will disable many features because they are proprietary. even roms that include proprietary code, like lineageos, will disable many features anyway because they can't make it work while updating the android version

open source should be mandatory. let the rest up to the users (if there is a strong enough community)

or comply with the gpl and release the kernel sources so that it can be supported by lineageos et al.

In India that is the story with Motorola phones. They have started making decent hardware, as in competing with others, but they sometimes don't even respect updates for their flagship phones. And then, they are not alone in this.

I took an Android detour late last year, early this year, just to see what the other side looks like. From the major vendors, only Google releases security updates like clockwork across all devices (similar to Apple).

Many Samsung flagships have monthly updates (good), but rolling out the updates is a shit show. Like the S23 could get the update on the 11th of a month (~10 days after Google opened the monthly security bulletin), while the S22 would only get updated on something like the 28th. Also they usually missed Google's 5th of the month platform updates, causing some flagships to be vulnerable for a Bluetooth RCE for almost two months.

Then some security updates are rolled out through the Google Play System updates (not Google Play or Google Play Services), however, the rollout regularly gets stuck on non-Google devices until someone at Google (?) fixes it. For instance when the Samsung S24 got out early this year, phones were stuck on the (I believe) July 2023 Play System.

If you want regular updates on Android, your best bet is getting a Google Pixel. Unfortunately, Pixel has a long history of issues (like not being able to call emergency services).

LineageOS supports quite a few Motorolas, at least:

https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/#motorola

I have used my Android 9 flagship smartphone for 6 years without issues, but had all sorts of issues on iOS when I avoided updates, specifically with apps, missing or broken.

Unlike iOS, most feature updates on Android are apps, not OS versions. iOS tends to be monolithic.

You don't need to update to use the latest apps or security updates (which is also a patch), at least for a while.

Android updates would make sense if the smartphone hardware advancments stop and the battery is easily replacable for a decade usage and more. e.g 8+ year old Android 7 devices are still supported and usable but slow.

Many manufactures release OS updates without incrementing the version, they're usually low level fixes (mic, battery, speaker, sleep etc).

Why would you avoid iOS updates? I only buy middle of the line used iPhones about every 3 years, and had no issues all the way into EOL. Apple keeps their phones updated for 6+ years and they always run smoothly. It's like the only great thing I can say about the company. Changing the battery yourself is easy too.

Widget updates impacting task switcher and home screen with lag circa version 15/16 and battery drain on some models.

While this is anecdotal, they don't always run smoothly at least statistically, and no software is always flawless...

Arguably one could say that the major iOS versions don't have major differences while Android does. E.g 9 to 10 has major graphic stack overhaul and 12+ has major app API changes. iOS 12-13 is significant while 13-16 has less core changes and more UI/UX relatively etc. Android upgrades are technical and under the hood, usually hardware specific changes and API. Most people can't tell between Android 6 and 14 with vendor skin/theme.

The point is you can keep an Android phone updated without changing the major version. You don't have to update the entire OS for the notes app like in iOS which I had to do because the Mac app refused to sync. You could also get major UI changes and new OS integrated features like quick share with app updates on the same Android version.

Changing battery on any modern smartphone isn't easy and very risky for the average person.

For the younger crowd, checkout smartphones before 2016, many had the ability to replace the battery under 10 seconds, though the point is that it's user serviceable.

More stats proving that you can have more issues with frequent feature updates without upgrading hardware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issues_relating_to_iOS

For me personally, I learned to avoid every smartphone vendor that:

1) doesn't share the sources of their Android OEM images online

2) isn't compatible with LineageOS.

3) doesn't have replaceable batteries.

If either of those apply, it's just a waste of money that can be avoided, regardless of build quality. In the case of the Jelly devices, they have a replaceable battery, but it's still just software waste.

Usually I ended up buying devices that fit my description from ebay in used condition so it's also kinda better for the environment because I am breathing life into a device that would've been electronic waste otherwise.

4) Is not bigger than 72mm W.

What you ended up with?

Honestly, some Sony XZ and Xiaomi Redmi devices were kinda nice in the past because even when they had a sealed battery they were still replaceable without super expensive heat plates.

Ethically I'd probably recommend a Fairphone 2/3/3+ in used condition, though they are somewhat clumsy. Ironically it's somewhat more private because the fingerprinting sensor never works in all of these models :D

In theory the Pixel 3+ devices would be amazing, but their resale value is just way too high for my cheap pockets. I set myself a limit of max 200 bucks for a used device, for both used laptops and smartphones and I never buy new hardware.

I'd avoid MediaTek chipset devices, because they have a known RootKit that can be easily exploited. Their CPUs have an undocumented root mode, and there's some apps and SDKs available that got leaked a while back.

My previous devices are now kind of ARM homeservers, because they either run ArchLinuxARM or PostmarketOS [1] on them, which is kinda nice and gives me a little satisfaction when I see that I can still use them for a nice tinkering purpose even without a battery inside.

One phone even runs my local mesh router with external USB Wi-Fi adapters, off-the-grid and solar charged. The display is used for the Web UI to manage things, which is also kinda nice. It's basically a fullscreen WebKit in kiosk mode.

[1] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices

Samsung Galaxy S line fits as well.

> isn't compatible with LineageOS

I gave up on rugged phones for this, I got a pixel 5 and a rhinoshield, which has survived over a year so far, although I don't just throw it around like I could with the bv7000. that phone was the smartphone equivalent of an old Nokia 3310.

Same here, same here.

All Blackview and CAT models were insanely bad when it comes to their software, and I couldn't get them to run any self-built ROM and neither any GSI image so I gave up on my dream of an open rugged phone, too :(

In the BV case I even tried using the MediaTek root-mode exploit, but didn't have success booting any compiled kernel because lots of drivers are messy in their firmware.

i miss the bv, if you drop it, you worry about your foot and the pavement.

Yeah and the company behind CAT phones (bullitt) is now bankrupt so they will no longer provide any support.

The Moto Z2 Force is great but it does seem as if it is slowly losing some support. I've dropped mine from a bike going 30+mph multiple times and have dropped it on the concrete (no case) more times than I can count.

My Galaxy Fold is on Android 12, it's been bugging me to upgrade to Android 13, which I ignore. These days Android OS feature advances tend to be minimal.

And given what other cheap Chinese Android brands cost, 200 is a premium for this.

It's a bit too small, but I like that it's a thing. However, for my own use, I want something in-between. A 4" phone would be ideal.

I'm still confused how there aren't any phones for people who still use a computer as their primary means of accessing the internet. Even for this one, the media review section makes it look like it's "to distract oneself from social media". As if a phone's primary purpose isn't to be a communication device for when you aren't near your computer.

iPhone 4 or 12 mini size is probably ideal for me personally.

While this is small, it is double the thickness of most modern phones.

Still, it is great to see a bit of creativity in the smartphone market. Most phones are pretty much the same these days.

For me, iPhone 5/5S/SE is the ideal size. I even seriously considered different ways to try to port Android to the SE, but while this would've been an interesting project, I decided that I have more useful things to work on.

iPhone 4 was the apex of phone design, I will die on this hill!

It was the Pre 3 [0] and I'll fight you for it. Lol.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Pre_3

Hah! Sliding keyboard, that absolutely rocks!

Somehow it's been 13 years and none of the available phone OSes have managed to be as usable or user-focused as WebOS was. Nor as easily hackable. The hardware was smooth like a river rock in your pocket, but still had an easily found physical slider switch to silence the device. It had wireless charging as a standard feature. And the software stack was familiar to any desktop Linux user with just a custom display layer on top. Complex multi-tasking was effortless on it (thanks in part to the gesture area and also the OS's cards interface). And it combined all contacts and messages regardless of communications channel into a unified interface. Oh, also, replaceable batteries!

Unfortunately HP played musical CEOs (three in less than a year) and one of them didn't see phones or PCs as businesses they should be in.

Former owner of Nokia E71, Nokia N900 (both user replaceable battery), Planet Computers Cosmo Communicator and Astro Slide (like old Psion keyboard): not really. The keys on this smartphone are very small, therefore annoying to use. The larger they are though, the bulkier.

You're also stuck in either portrait or landscapr mode. Whereas a touchscreen smartphone can reuse the touchscreen for say watch a movie or use different input (like say gamepad).

I believe the current innovation trend lies in those small foldables. Of course, small form factor and dual screen has disadvantages for battery, repairability, and ridiculously high price.

Psion Series 3:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Series_3>

Cool device but doesn't look very pocketable.

Anything's pocketable with sufficiently large pockets ;-)

The Psion would fit well into a coat or jacket pocket, or cargo pants/shorts, and easily fit into a satchel or messenger bag.

The Psion S3 dimensions are 165 mm x 85 mm x 22 mm (6.50 in x 3.35 in x 0.87 in). Contrast the iPhone 15 at 147.6 mm x 71.6 mm x 7.8mm (5.81" x 2.82" x 0.31"), and the iPhone 15+ at 160.9 mm x 77.8 mm x 7.8 mm (6.33" x 3.06" x 0.31"). Other than thickness, these are pretty comparable.

What it offers most specifically, however, is a useful and usable set of capabilities, in both hardware and software: full keyboard, email, calendar, Web, word processing, spreadsheet, contacts.

I've known journalists who've used it as their mobile platform for gathering and filing news stories, which also means it passes the "professional use" test.

Dimensions from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Series_3> and <https://www.apple.com/iphone-15/specs/>.

I don't like iPhones, and have never had one, but I will absolutely agree with you on that. The iPhone 4's industrial design was beautiful.

iPhone 4 was a great size and looked great, but the sharp edges would wear through your jeans in a way that the earlier iPhones did not. That's my only complaint.

Who cares about thickness other than tech enthusiasts? There are phones that are so thin, they feel uncomfortable while in your hand.

Those of us who carry it in the front pocket.

laughs in woman

I do. But to be honest, some phones are so thin that I fear I'll accidentally break them when sitting down. I'd rather take a thicker but smaller phone because of that.

>While this is small, it is double the thickness of most modern phones.

My only problem with the Mini was the battery, they could have increased the thickness to iPhone 4 ( 9.3mm ), to increase the battery life. They could have also make it slightly bigger so it matches the same size as iPhone SE, while increasing battery life. Instead the iPhone mini was a compromise too far that very few people wanted it for its price.

Had the iPhone SE also have two size of phone to choose from, there should definitely be a mini at 5.6" and a normal at 6.1".

Those phones differ in screen size by two whole inches, so putting them in the same bucket is basically useless.

Amen. An updated 4" flagship would be incredible! They say that small phones are for people with small hands, but no-one can one-hand a 6" phone without holding it like an idiot. I want the claw grip back!

That and I also have small hands. My current phone is a Pixel 4a, and it's already way past my comfort zone. It's frustrating to use with one hand, and, believe it or not, most of my phone usage is one-handed. It's like all phone manufacturers have collectively forgotten about ergonomics.

Has there ever been a focus on ergonomics over aesthetics by any manufacturer of any tech product over the last decade?

Nothing comes to mind.

Those curved keyboards and mice come to my mind.

Those are from the 1990s.

These exists that somewhat popular Logitech mouse, I don't remember the exact model, but it's "ergonomic" and modern enough that it has USB-C and bluetooth. I've also seen curved modern keyboards, albeit those are rarer.

edit: Logitech MX Master 3

Glove80 is a new curved keyboard design (in many ways a departure from Kinesis' 1990 designs).

The glove80 is nice but it's by one guy if I'm not mistaken. When it comes to ergonomic stuff by big companies I'm still not so sure. Yes logitech made an ergo keyboard but they probably released 5 or 10 "regular" ones for one ergo one.

I'll be holding on to this Mini 13 until Apple makes another model in that form factor, or until it's unusably obsolete. So far, it does what I need, and does it fast enough.

How's the battery life?

Not the parent, but my experience is very good.

Right now for example, it’s at 44% after 24hrs from 100%. This is pretty sufficient for me

I loved the 12 Mini, but battery life was one of the reasons to upgrade. 44% after 24 hours is very impressive. I often wouldn't make it through the day.

there are A LOT of settings in ios that can safely be disabled while retaining "phone" functionality and conserving energy/data

In my own experience iPhones somehow just love eating through battery doing nothing. I know because I have an iPhone I hardly use. It takes around 3 days to completely drain the battery doing nothing laying on my desk. Airplane mode does extend it by a lot. Android is much better at this, probably thanks to the "doze mode".

Adequate for my purposes. The whole point of owning it is that I have a very light-duty relationship with the phone: music/podcast, maps, some food delivery and ride share, and some messaging when I'm not at my laptop. I don't read stuff on it, let alone browse the web or doomscroll social media.

So when I'm at home it can easily last a couple days. If I'm traveling by air, or other rare occasions where my phone gets heavy use, I have a slap-pack battery to stretch it out. I'm more likely to resort to that if I'm traveling and I forget to charge it: it's obviously not as much battery as a bigger phone, but for 99% of days, it's more than fine.

It serves my purposes, and fits in more pockets than the big bricks do. I wish Apple would learn to count as low as several million, and go back to accommodating the smolphone niche, but their current policy seems to be that if a product doesn't sell enough units to supply one to every resident of a mid-sized European country, it isn't worth manufacturing. Pity.

I bought one to carry on while doing physical activities and, eventually stay connected.

Unihertz will be launching their Jelly Max phone in a couple of days, which is bigger than the Jelly Star but (hopefully) not too big. As a 1st gen iPhone SE user I'm intrigued.

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fg... Looks to be about the same size as iPhone SE 2016

Yeah roughly, although it's estimated to be a lot thicker, greater than 1.5 cms by some sources.

The jelly pro/star is very thick, but I suspect the jelly max will be much thinner as there's more screen space to put a bigger battery behind

Dimensions just released, it's going to be 16.3mm thick

Well, that would have been the perfect smartphone for me, I had the original Jelly but it was too small.

Now, I have the iPhone 13 mini and I love it.

Just give us a commbadge then.

Star Trek had it right all along. Commbadge (or flip communicator) is for talking. A PADD is for reading, writing, media consumption. A tricorder is for recording, remote sensing and remote operating needs. You always have at minimum the first one when in the go. When working, you usually have all on you. But then, at home and work you also have proper computer terminals available and then some.

10 years ago, I thought this was a quite obsolete vision, given how our smartphones are so multifunctional. These days I feel it was prescient, and that our phones are a bad idea, for human nature reasons.

I tend to feel the Commbadge and communicator are tropes to make it easy to communicate to viewers. Given the technology in real life, I prefer text over voice for quick, rapid messages.

I'm a text person too, but I suspect we're not the majority, and definitely not the entirety of the smartphone-using population. I recently noticed my wife is increasingly often exchanging voice messages on Messenger instead of text messages, with increasing number of her friends. I queried about this several times, she says they all find it more convenient. It sounds unbelievable to my text-first sensibilities, but apparently it is.

This is very prevalent in the expat community where I have many friends. I hate it. At least the current AI developments made it possible for messenger apps to transcribe the messages to text (and back, though I haven't seen that feature yet) - we both get what's best for us.

And same with voice calls and voicemail - I mostly don't accept calls and let them all go to voicemail. iPhone transcribes what they're saying in real time and I can decide to pick up.

I'm really looking forward to an AI-first total overhaul of communication UX.

> iPhone transcribes what they're saying in real time and I can decide to pick up.

How does this work? Is it a carrier feature?

On my iPhone, if it goes to voicemail the call is done and the display goes to sleep. I have to go looking for the message in the voicemail to interact with it.

I’m in France and have never seen this on the two carriers I’ve used (Bouygues and Free).

It's US only.

It's not. I'm not in US, nor have any connection to it.

Apple disagrees: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/set-up-voicemail-iph3...

This is not the same experience I have. Mine is much more basic, inside the voicemail app.

Yeah that’s just voicemail transcription. The other one picks up the call and does it live.

It recently started to work on my Vodafone plan. Never even had a voicemail before that. Probably not a carrier-specific feature, at least not the transcription - though passing the voicemail audio data on probably requires some carrier-side support. I don't think it's some backhand deal though, I think it's using some unusual GSM/LTE/5G capability.

Speech to text doesn't require AI. I've had it on my Google keyboard for a very long time. Its always been accurate too.

In my case, it always been garbage. Speech to text doesn't require AI when you do it like Microsoft did it in the aughts; ever since "new, better", cloud-side techniques came along, the technology got worse, and the only meaningful qualitative improvement I've seen in two decades is in the last two years, with new-generation models which may or may not be backed by LLMs now.

Dragon dictate was crappy.

Google keyboard was pretty precise.

Over time its become worse, but all of Googles products have become worse. That doesn't mean it we couldnt do it, we just can't rely of Google to provide it.

> Speech to text doesn't require AI.

*grumpy old man shakes fist at ever-changing meaning of words*

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect

https://www.kurzweiltech.com/kai.html

They didn't call it AI previously.

Are we redefining STT as AI?

> They didn't call it AI previously.

"In this excerpt from The Age of Spiritual Machines (Viking, 1999), Ray Kurzweil describes his work in speech recognition." - previous link

"The ‘80s saw speech recognition vocabulary go from a few hundred words to several thousand words. One of the breakthroughs came from a statistical method known as the “Hidden Markov Model (HMM)”. Instead of just using words and looking for sound patterns, the HMM estimated the probability of the unknown sounds actually being words." - https://sonix.ai/history-of-speech-recognition

"Voice Recognition", title of page 82, "Who's who in Artificial Intelligence: The AI Guide to People, Products, Companies, Resources, Schools and Jobs" - By Alan Kernoff, 1986

> Are we redefining STT as AI?

The opposite, you're redefining it as not AI.

Speech to text exists, they should have stuck to that.

Voice notes are garbage. Sorry I'm in a noisy place, I can't hear your text message.

They're not using voice messages as alternative to typing; most of the time, they have hands free to use the keyboard. They're using voice messages as asynchronous, replayable phone calls.

20 years ago I was very resistant to buying any mobile phone because I was waiting for an in ear piece that would do the whole job, and let you dial by voice. It seemed just around to corner, and logical, because who would want to carry a phone everywhere?

If you combine an Apple Watch with Apple EarPods you get exactly that

But you still need an iPhone somewhere right? Can't just use the watch on its own?

I did think about this, but battery life is pretty bad if you actually use the watch throughout the day and I now need a whole train of devices instead of just an earpiece.

Well there is the Hunane AI Pin:

https://humane.com/

It looks like the product launch didn’t go well though:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/humane-ai-pin-founde...

This is cool as an option. But, why oh why mustn't we have any 5 inch Android phone on the market? It's not as if there's no demand, as evidenced by iPhone SE on the iOS side. The last real Android choice was the Pixel 4a and beyond that, everything has been mega huge.

As an owner of a Samsung Galaxy S22, which is not small but seemed to me like the only sane size - feature - price balance on the Android market back then: maybe the reason is battery life?

I'm really underwhelmed by the one of the S22. I barely get a day out of it. When I'm travelling with Google Maps, I have to carry a power bank.

Maybe current android phones are just optimized so bad in comparison to iPhones? And increasing device size allows for a proportionally larger battery size.

Surely with modern processor efficiency, they could get similar or better battery life as small phones of the 2010s? Thinking lovingly of the form factor of the 2013 Moto X.

Yes! That first generation Moto X was the premature peak of the small Android phone. After that everything just got bigger and increasingly less beautiful.

The Moto X 2013 was awesome. It already had some modern smartphone features (AMOLED, always listen phrase) And it was so comfortable in-hand. The Moto X 2014 was already a pretty big regression in that regard (then Lenovo bought Motorola from Google and updates went down the drain as well).

Most likely you have the Exynos CPU? I upgraded from a S21 Ultra (Exynos) to a S23 Ultra (Snapdragon).

Battery life is so much better. I use the 80% battery protection option and nearly always make it through the day. Only if I constantly watch videos the battery is flat in the evening.

With power saving and 100% battery I can reach 2 1/2 to 3 days. Loving it.

Doesn't have to be Exynos. The US version has the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which had heating and battery drain issues. The Gen 2 solved these issues.

The Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 solved it by switching to a better TSMC node. The Gen 2 increased performance (on the same node) and got again somewhat less efficient.

The Asus Zenphone 9 is basically the same size, and two years into it I still average 25-45% battery usage from rising to sleeping for the night. GSam says average per complete battery charge is 2d 16.2h, and Screen On is 11h 58m with an observed maximum of 8 hours 30m.

So battery life and a smallish phone are completely compatible with each other.

The S22 is notorious for the poor battery life. The S23, for example, is pretty much the same size, faster, and the battery lasts significantly longer.

Even on the Apple side there doesn't seem to be that much demand, as demonstrated by the fact that the SEs are just iterations on old iPhone tooling (currently the iPhone 8) rather than brand new compact designs, and the size of the SE has crept upwards as they moved it to newer tooling. I think the motive behind the SE has more to do with cost optimization than size, it just happens that the cheapest way to make an iPhone is to refresh one of the older iPhones, which incidentally were smaller, as was the style at the time.

Also, the iPhone minis did not really fly, apparently.

God, I wish "not being wanted by at least 100M people" didn't disqualify products from existing.

I mean, it disqualifies products from existing at reasonable price points.

because we made the rules as such, not because of a universal/natural law

Comment further down the thread mentioned the upcoming Jelly Star Max. Looks like it is exactly what you look for.

https://www.unihertz.com/pages/new?utm_source=twitter&utm_me...

Another comment said they are shoddy at best at updates as in they just don't. You might not want an Android phone for daily usage i.e. your main phone i.e for banking apps etc which is not regularly updates and upgraded.

Well hey, that does look interesting! I wonder what the screen resolution will be, and whether it will actually make it to market. But either way, nice that there might be something in the works.

It's going to have a 5" screen, but quite thick at 15mm. A similar (but thinner) size phone is the Qin 3 Ultra.

It's hard to rail against market forces, where bigger seems to mean prosperity.

The same model of SUV is always bigger as time goes on, and there seems to be no small pickups anymore.

I've always wondered if modest people buy used devices and cars, and don't have a say in what new ones are like.

Old (er) people spend a lot of money. Old(er) people want larger screens and bigger cars because they're easier to overcome physical issues (sight and dexterity).

This is my theory.

> Old (er) people spend a lot of money.

Still blows my mind that this is like that in countries that didn't go through a 70-year period of socialism.

Anyway, old people don't buy smartphones as much, at least from my observations. They still only use a phone for calls, so why bother? There exist dumb phones with large buttons and simple large UIs specifically for older people.

It means prosperity in the sense that the manufacturer is taking you to the cleaners by eliminating smaller low-end and mid-range products to funnel you into higher margin "big" things, for both cars and phones.

SUVs being pushed so aggressively the US is because the margins are better and the segment is eternally protected by the Chicken Tax. The insane CAFE leniency for lardassed SUVs/"light trucks" is fought for tooth and nail because the margins on SUVs (especially full-size ones) are crazy.

Same thing happened with phones. Remember when a thousand dollar phone was stupid? Now that's what shit gets developed on, tested on, etc. It's just normal, and that's great for people who make phones.

Not enough modest people exist to really make an impact in sales numbers and even if they did, they don't really drive any more sales. I know multiple people that are very well off, money in the bank, with a nice house, multiple very nice (enthusiast) cars, that just don't give off the same FOMO effect as somebody in a shitload of debt living in a McMansion driving around a shiny new Navigator.

1000 dollar phone is still stupid. You can easily get a laptop with more functionality for way cheaper.

There isn't that much demand on the Apple side. Apple discontinued the iPhone mini because they weren't selling.

The iPhone SE's popularity is driven by price, not the demand for a smaller phone. The iPhone SE is 5% taller and wider than an iPhone mini. People didn't buy the iPhone mini at $100 cheaper than an iPhone. If they were going to settle for a smaller phone, they wanted half-off.

It allows Apple to be in the $400 market by putting out a device that won't compete with the regular iPhone. If Apple offers an iPhone SE sized device at $700, people don't want it. iPhone SE buyers mostly want a larger phone - they just don't want to pay for it.

I love the iPhone mini, but people didn't want a small phone. They wanted a cheaper phone. I'd love it if this weren't the case. I do want a 5" phone, but when Apple put out a 5" phone, people wouldn't buy it. They'll only buy it if you price it at half-off.

Reading this post... I think that probably the mini's failures are due to it being so much more than the SE, but people wanting smaller screens are also people "OK" with less tech in the phone as well. SE likely canabalized the mini sales way too much.

The main hope for the future would be the SE getting the 12 mini form factor... but then Apple probably would be worried about it canabalizing bigger phone!

seems obvious that there is a small group of people who will pay for a premium small iPhone, priced the same as regular sized phone

> The iPhone SE's popularity is driven by price, not the demand for a smaller phone. The iPhone SE is 5% taller and wider than an iPhone mini.

seems like you are talking about the "new se" models, not the original one that everyone wants.

>Apple discontinued the iPhone mini because they weren't selling.

I've read somewhere that they sold several millions of them in the US alone. Is that not enough to make a profit?

But I think they could sell it with a slower CPU (cheaper) and it would still be fine. People who want a smaller phone probably have a computer at home.

There certainly was some market for a small phone, although how much is beyond my current knowledge. It's definitely a niche market segment.

I think Apple's misstep was to make it a small version of the yearly models rather than a nicer version of the SE. The SE is on a 2-3 year cadence rather than yearly, and the hardware in the 2022 SE is very similar to the 13 mini. So I think the angle should have been to market the SE in 2 flavors: the current "Touch ID" model with hella bezels for US$429, and a "Face ID" model (the "mini") for US$499 or $529.

It could keep just the single camera, notch instead of "Dynamic Island," no MagSafe, worse screen and glass, etc.

This wouldn't eat into the market for the more expensive models while still delivering enough performance for most people. Sure it wouldn't please the "literal flagship, but smol" crowd, but would have reduced engineering and make inventory easier.

There was the zenphone 9/10 in the same size, which also sold poorly enough that the 11 is a regular huge phone. Other than the same thousands (not even millions) of us complaining online year after year there's just no demand.

Zenphone 9 was marketed as small, but it's exactly the same size as a normal iPhone 13/14/15.

Because those of us who want a small phone likely thinks that is too big. Hell the erstwhile mini was oversized, part of why it didn’t sell so well I suspect.

3.5in and then not nearly as thick as this one, would be ideal for me. Or just keep the device size from the first couple iPhones.

I've been using this phone as my full time phone for 1 year. It's a great compromise for people that ideally would not want a smartphone, but need to have one since many life situations require it.

I basically only use it for WhatsApp and music, but when some other need arises, it can do everything a normal smartphone can do.

The only problem is that the build quality is not good. The audio jack of the first one I bought (off the initial kickstarter) broke after 6 months or so. I bought another one, and the up volume button recently broke. But otherwise, no complaints.

Interesting. The headphone jack would be my main reason for buying this thing.

Recently forgot my iPad on a trip, and couldn't listen to anything on the plane because my goddamned iPhone lacks a headphone jack. So offensively stupid.

Note that I was fairly careless with it, and I'm pretty clumsy. It probably fell 20+ times. But still, it feels very cheap (and I suppose it makes sense given the price).

I have a Jelly pro , and has similarly fallen a fair few times and is fine. Feeling cheap doesn't necessarily mean it's less rugged though - a plastic case is generally going to absorb more shock than a glass or metal case like 'premium' phones have. I remember my first android (Galaxy S) was panned for feeling 'cheap' but I dropped that so many times and it's still alive today.

> It probably fell 20+ times

That's more than normal phones could withstand.

why didn't you buy the Bluetooth adapter from the bestbuy kiosk in the airport to use your airpods with the plane's headphone jack?

Why not just get a 3.5mm to lightning adaptor? They have knock-off/generic versions at gas stations that cost like 5 dollars and it beats lugging around a whole extra device just to use your headphones

Not op, but for me, those things have been finicky and randomly disconnect, and when they do, it's more of a problem because you're removing the whole audio device instead of just the output plug (so like the audio might pause instead of just having some static).

Also, because I use my headphones on other devices with audio jacks, I lose those adapters all the time. Don't really like having a tail on my phone all the time. Vastly prefer having aux on my phones/tablets.

i end up using an adapter (because samsung also arm-twisted me into doing that), but they are typically terrible quality/break, catch on to things, i need to always remember to pack one, and still keep forgetting/losing them. Our overlords at Apple (Samsung promptly followed) decided that we must all switch to airpods, but instead just made it a huge pain for people. Also strange for Samsung whose phones are gigantic, it's not like they don't have enough room.

Last I checked iphones and galaxys were almost identical in size, which models are your talking about?

i was referring more to the topic starter phone - 95.1 × 49.6 × 18.7 mm vs Galaxy S23 146.3 x 70.9 x 7.6. It does seem quite thicker than Galaxy actually. Maybe that's Samsung's excuse. I don't have much experience with (or much interest in) Apple phones, they seem to inspire Samsung to follow the same trends.

Another alternative is a small 3.5 mm to Bluetooth device. It allows for any 3.5mm output to use Bluetooth and best of all: already paired and battery is on the module not the headphones themselves.

Nice option for (old) cars.

Depends on how "old." Just as pretty much every car finally had an auxiliary input (even the cheapest rental car), Apple deleted the headphone jack from its best-selling music player.

And now we've regressed to no aux inputs, no audio outputs, and nothing but shitty Bluetooth. But the '90s Pioneer head unit in my car has an input, as does my stock 2009 Ranger.

The knockoff lightning adapters might, in fact, be Bluetooth, per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40528410

Because

A. I didn't know I didn't have my iPad until I was on the plane. I carry it on all trips. And this shouldn't be an issue anyway.

B. They suck. My girlfriend has a Belkin one in her car that produces so much hiss that it is perceivable as, I'd say, 60% of the volume of the music we're listening to. And when the music fades out, it has some absurd AGC that pumps the hiss up to program level.

C. You can't power the device if the Lightning port is occupied by a dongle.

It's disgusting that consumers tolerate this BS and then make excuses for it.

There are other android alternatives that have a headphone jack - though getting fewer each year unfortunately. I want a phone that takes good pictures, has long feature updates, and has an aux jack - I haven't been able to find one in years, so I've been compromising with ones that only get one new android version (plus security updates for 2-3 years)

I can only imagine that the typing experience on such a tiny phone is sub optimal. When you say WhatsApp are you actually typing in messages ?

I am, but I only type the messages I need to type. Which aren't that many. If there's some long explanation to be had I call or I leave a voice message. And yes, I am aware of the fact that everybody hates voice messages, but it's only fair if somebody requires my immediate attention :).

Typing is painful, but not disastrous actually. It's perfectly serviceable.

I used one for about a year. I thought I'd be using voice-to-text a lot to get around this issue, but couldn't get used to the idea. A swipe-style keyboard does make typing much less onerous that you might imagine though.

I had one of the predecessors to this (the Jelly 2) as one of my strategies to cut down on smart phone usage.

It was a nice idea (as it introduced pain points of using it as a distraction device), but the battery life ended up being abysmal to the point that I couldn't trust it to complete a day. Having a tiny smart phone and then having to take a battery pack for it was absurdity.

It also led me to appreciate how much I'd come to rely on always having a good camera in my pocket. The picture quality was poor enough that the photos would leave me feeling genuinely quite sad.

I've been using one of these for about a year. It's been great having a device that I can actually reach all of, and the small size also helps to not be a distraction.

About the only thing I miss from the Pixel series is camera skills and unnatural photo enhancements. It takes some nudging to get my jelly star to focus properly.

Then you could even buy a separate digital camera…

Try their Tank Mini. Double the pixels, double the battery and still tiny enough: https://www.unihertz.com/products/tank-mini

We have it here in the house, it is a really good phone too.

How is durability? I use a Pixel 4 in https://ghostek.com/products/atomic-slim-pixel-4-series which is very nice because the bumper frame rises above the screen so when you drop it the screen doesn't break. Yet, it's not obnoxiously huge. I love this setup -- except for the Pixel 4 abysmal battery life.

It is obviously a small phone screen size, my wife is using it because she doesn't like to charge phones and didn't wanted a bulky phone either so that was the middle point.

Camera quality is really good. Battery lasts a week, writing stuff is difficult but generic browsing, whatsapp and so on works as intended. She loves the laser range to measure things, has been used often.

In overall the alumminium body gives it a very impressive and neat look, the phone is certainly tough. She is happy.

This Jelly thing is the first Android phone that makes me think about switching from iPhone to Android.

I have been waiting for iPhone Nano for years. At this time Apple could make absolutely amazing mini phone if they wanted.

Imagine something like two Apple Watches put together. UI could be something similar to Watch OS with only the essentials, maybe with a bit more capabilities.

Now I'm hopeful as Apple discontinued iPhone mini. To be honest 12/13 mini was OK but it was too close to SE and it didn't really deliver the promise of a small phone. It was good but not inspiring or super exciting. I think they should try to blow us away with something really small and innovative.

Meanwhile I'm going to try Jelly Star as secondary phone. I was surprised how good it was, being full Android phone in a small size. Even typing with such a small keyboard worked surprisingly well.

The diagonal size is impressively small, but it’s crazy thick. It’s more than 1.8cm thick! In their images it’s nearly as thick as a roll of film which is just absurd. I’d love a small phone and I’m willing to compromise a bit on it being thicker than the average iPhone, but this thing looks insane.

For a small device like this, I don’t think I’d want it to be thinner. Thick and rounded like this just seems like it would be the most comfortable design for using with one hand.

> I think they should try to blow us away with something really small and innovative.

absolutely!

give me back a phone that easily fits in pockets and doesn't pull my shorts down; it's doable.

Jelly Star is really small, I doubt it's usual as an actual smartphone (but I understand the "under-smartphone" usage). For the people who want the just-big-enough-to-be-usable-one-handed (for average man hands let's say), the upcoming Jelly Max should fit better.

My current daily driver which fits that just-big-enough is Qin 3 Ultra. Its size is perfect, but it is no longer available (unless you want to use their original firmware, which ugh, no)

(Also anecdote, I once ordered a phone from Unihertz, I never received it. I couldn't cancel the payment because it was a kickstarter with few months delay...I won't buy directly from them again)

Of course none of the devices I mentioned (both Qin & Unihertz) are compliant with GPL and release their kernel source code...

>the upcoming Jelly Max

From a quick search it looks like it's gonna have a 5" screen and be 15mm thick.

Here tho official announcement:

https://www.unihertz.com/pages/new?utm_source=twitter&utm_me...

Why won't they list the size? Isn't that the point of these phones?

I'd preorder one if I knew this one important thing (and it was the size I wanted), but now I'll probably wait a year or two for the price to come down and the bugs to be shaken out. So annoying...

No affiliation - saw a colleague use this the other day. He said it helped him reduce his screen time, while still being able to use WhatsApp etc. to stay in touch with family.

My first iPhone (original SE) was a choice 95% because of its size and 5% out of curiosity for iOS. At that time (2016-17) when Androids had already started ballooning up. 12 Mini's new battery was insufficient and that is why I had decided to move to iPhone 14 and not just replace that battery as that would have not been good enough either. Original SE was my favourite, second was mini.

If there is going to be a "private" enough Android (even if that is a bigger phone) with stricter Play Store and clamping down on rampant permission devouring by apps, I will stop buying iPhones. Because if I have to anyway buy jumbo phones I'd rather buy cheaper Androids. Had hopes from Nothing phone in privacy but they are into just gimmicks like funny lights on the back and all.

But I don't think Google will do it or let it happen.

And I'm glad for that. I wouldn't trade all the crap on the Play Store (not to mention the ability to easily install from outside Play) for Apple's nanny-state App Store approval policies.

You may want to look into Graphene OS. It comes with zero Google products preloaded (you can install them after the fact) and permissions controls are great. Ironically, the only hardware it works on though are Google Pixel phones due to their hardware security chip.

I have looked at it. I don't want to deal with that. I would be happy to pay a premium if an OEM supports it. I neither have time nor patience/passion (more of this one) to tinker around anymore. Besides there is this risk of apps not working (esp. banking/finance apps) and then I will be screwed. And I have a Pixel 5 (as a secondary phone) and I am never buying another Google made/sold phone ever.

To be honest, graphene was probably the least tinkering of any ROM I've used.

You can install it directly from chrome on their page and then you're basically done.

If you choose to install play store, you just install it and that's it.

I'm curious if people actually use the IR in place of their TV remote as in the promo. For me personally, I think the friction of having to fire up an app first would preclude me from ever using it in earnest.

It’s pretty easy to launch the remote function on my iPhone to control my Apple TV. I still almost never do it.

The loss of the tactile ability to find the buttons, especially without looking, kills it unless you’re in a real bind.

The only time I ever use mine, is when the dreaded linear type entry comes up.

On their own TV at home: probably not.

In airports, bars, waiting rooms: absolutely.

It's a great option when the kids lose the remote somewhere

I used that feature once. Long day on a construction site. Last job was to hook up a PC to a Smart-TV. No remote to be seen. Costumer no longer on site. Jelly 2 to the rescue :-) Felt Swiss Army knifey.

One of my dogs thinks tv remotes are the most delicious chew toy.

I've switched to using my phone as a TV remote, exclusively, but I realize I'm a bit of an edge case.

I have the jelly star and I do use this feature. It's useful if the remote is missing and you need to adjust the volume or something.

I aslo used it when I was working away from home and was trying to plug my laptop into a TV HDMI port. I had no remote and couldn't switch the input manually but was able to do it with the phone.

Some years ago, for a reason I can't remember, I was browsing tiny phones (not smartphones) in a Chinese e-commerce site. I was amazed by the vast range of devices in this category (at the time).

After a few Google searches trying to understand why there was demand for such small phones, one article suggested that these phones are perfect for getting smuggled in prisons "you know how". Don't know if this is true, but it sounds plausible and the vast range of devices could be explained by this.

They were tinier than the smartphone in this article, though.

Yep. Good for kiestering.

There was a time around 2004ish where fashion was smaller the phone the richer you appear. So a status symbol. As they were usually more expensive to make them small back then.

This makes a great, capable, burner phone for traveling to high risk countries.

The low price, decent performance, small package is perfect for travel and you wouldn't have to worry if it was lost or stolen if you only load up minimal things in there and it doesn't have all your banking apps, etc.

Why offer a crappy default Spanish translation when you can just not?

- The name of the product is broken "Jelly Star Estrella" instead of Jelly Star

- "Descubrir Jelly Star Estrella" instead of "Descubre Jelly Star"

- "Jelly Star Estrella Presenta un diseño" consistently uppercasing the first word disregarding their product name in the sentence

- "Jelly Star EstrellaLa luz LED" or just not leaving spaces

- "Aparece en dos colores" instead of "Disponible en dos colores"

I got tired reading an IA generated translation not reviewed by one single human that spoke the language, that went through some quick copy and paste.

Concept looks cool, I just can't trust them on quality.

Guaranteed Security Updates until? Not even mentioned? So it's just e-waste.

As @hagbard_c pointed out earlier, LegacyOS runs well on it, so you can continue using it when updates cease to appear.

LineageOS?

An open source android distro, forked from CyanogenMod.

Sorry. My bad.

LineageOS neither updates the binary blobs nor does it correctly implement secureboot and they don't backport all security updates correctly.

I had the Jelly 2 (Android 11). The Kickstarter promised an Android 12 update. Never happend. In fact, it never got any update. (On the official webforum there was talk about one update. You had to download it from a shady download site. There where all sorts of warnings. I don't remember if I tried and it failed or I never tried to update it. Still no good look. They deliver on the hardware but it is fire and forget on the software site.)

I miss really small phones.

My favourite two small iPhones were the small-by-contemporary-standards iPhone 5S and SE.

My favourite phone ever, small or large, was the Sony Xperia Mini Pro (the second of the Xperia Mini devices, with the slide out keyboard). An absolutely amazingly useful, chunky little device with a super keyboard, an unusually good camera for the time, and an actual shutter button for it.

I'd have used that phone for a couple of years longer had the ambient light sensor not failed. Hard to use a phone that doesn't turn off the touchscreen when it's pressed against your ear.

I tolerate iOS to get the iphone 13 mini's form factor.

I second the Sony Xperia Mini Pro as the best phone ever. I replaced mine enough times that my jeans pockets all had silhouettes worn into them.

And it has a headphone jack! Seriously considering this.

Steer clear of Unihertz. If they ship a phone riddled with bugs, the phone will remain riddled with bugs.

Japan has some nice small phones for kids. Although the specs are quite basic. https://youtu.be/AmthGJ5Qwvk?feature=shared https://onlineshop.smt.docomo.ne.jp/products/detail.html?mob...

I don't think there is any with official or unofficial Play Store support. Japanese phone are rarely flashable too.

    > I don't think there is any with official or unofficial Play Store support.

I am sure that is a feature, not a bug.

If size is a large part of your sales pitch you need to show an image with some reference in it.

https://www.noypigeeks.com/android/unihertz-jelly-star/

While hands come in different sizes the picture there gives an immediate feel for the product. Next you might feel you want one. 95.1 × 49.6 × 18.7 mm is more accurate but there is no feeling.

I recently got this phone, and it really sparked joy.

It does everything I need to function in 2024 (messaging people, navigating cities, managing tickets, NFC payments etc), while not tempting me into the dark/addictive side of smartphones.

Only problem is mine seems to be defective. After some time of usage everything hangs and I need to restart it, sometimes 4-5 times a day. Other people I know don’t have the issue. Luckily they’re cheap!

I had one of their earlier models. It wasn't a great phone and the software had some issues. But I suppose it was plenty small. I think I stopped using it because the carrier I switched to didn't support it.

I wanted to keep it as a backup phone for emergencies but the battery didn't last long enough to be relied upon.

Life has taught me so many lessons. No matter how good, humble and honest you are to them that doesn’t mean that they will treat you the same way. I married my husband for almost five years now with no idea that he was cheating on me. I noticed some changes in his character and I decided to confide in a friend who introduced me to a hacker whose name is Vladimir. This guy did a wonderful and perfect job for me by hacking his phone call log, facebook messenger messages, phone messages, whatsapp, Skype, database and so on. Contact: ( SPYRECOVERY36 @ GM AIL C OM )

For people worried about the keyboard typing, I've been very curious about the Titan Pocket as an alternative option. Square screen (fun!), "real" keybaord... the biggest problem seeming to be that the keyboard is intentionally a bit weird in the layout to avoid dealing with Blackberry ...design patents I think https://www.unihertz.com/products/titan-pocket

As a former iPhone 12 mini user (whose spouse is on their second one because the other phones are getting too big)... I don't need the screen to be tiny but I legit wonder what people with smaller hands/pockets/whatever are going to do.

I wrote an input service to improve the keyboard of the Titan Pocket[1], it's quite good for writing things. I've since sold it and tried a Jelly Star, which I returned.

The Titan Pocket is a nice phone, a bit too big and too heavy for me, but like most of the Unihertz offering the major pain point is that the stock firmware is old and not to be trusted, and the community-driven LineageOS alternatives are flimsy and incomplete. This is also due to Unihertz and Mediatek not doing their part and releasing the relevant source code or documentation for specific drivers/services. There is a small community with a few dedicated members but it's a bit of an uphill battle.

[1] https://github.com/oin/titanpocketkeyboard

Looks like there might have been some creative recycling of very old tooling to make this, the design language is reminicisient of Android phones from a decade ago. Especially the presence of dedicated navigation buttons, which were phased out starting from Android 4.0.

buttons probably just work better than gestures on such a small screen. Agree with the design language though, very late 90s / early 2000’s

Temu is loaded with devices like this. Why would I spend $200 on this when I could spend $75 for a device with virtually identical feature set and manufacturing methods?

Blah blah blah "because it isn't from Temu." Like any domestic retailer is any better these days.

I still use an iPhone SE (original 2016 version), probably the most beautiful phone ever and quite functional, though this year it finally stopped being supported by a lot of apps due to its iOS. Surprisingly, most apps work just fine until they are just removed from availability. (I'm not gaming on it or anything!) It is the perfect size and with no notifications enabled, is dang near ideal as long as you don't need great photos (but if Apple ever returned the form factor which will obviously never happen, I am sure a decent camera is viable). That said, I really can't believe we are still stuck with these devices, which are mostly anti-social and too tempting to distraction. Though Humane was laughable, some kind of thing that gives me access to information when I need it but otherwise doesn't really interrupt the flow of life would be pretty awesome.

same same

still holding onto 1st-gen se because i value my autonomy but want a pocket computer.

galaxy s4mini was even thinner and lighter.

Same! They are awesome phones, and I love that if I break it, my replacement is $50.

I have a Jelly Pro, used it for about a year. It fits in the useless pocket of your jeans, and gets you plenty of weird looks. I got it planning to utilise the annoyance of a tiny screen to use my phone less, but it works as well as I thought it would (that's addiction for you).

That aside, two things I would really like in a phone like this are a better camera, and the ability to plug in the phone to a bigger screen (some apps have an equivalent web-app you can use on a laptop, but there were enough that didn't have that that I had to stuff around on them with the phone). Also it is quite thick, but this didn't bother me very much.

Would rather wait for the Tiq Mini M5 to be back in stock. [0] as the small Android device you should be waiting for.

[0] https://www.tiqphone.com/

That looks like a significantly different type of device.

I'd be okay with a small screen as a compromise for making the device smaller—I like small things—but I really don't want buttons taking up half the space.

I personally think the original iPhone’s 3.5” screen was perfect, and I’m sad that my iPhone mini didn’t survive as a product line. My next phones screen will be big, and I’ll hate it but live with it.

My current phone is an iPhone 13 Mini. My next phone will also be an iPhone 13 Mini unless it's completely unusable at that point, or Apple haven't got back to their senses.

My hope is that they repurpose the mini form-factor into the SE model. I don’t want a budget phone, but I’m willing to tolerate it for the size.

This reminds of my Huawei Ideos with Android Froyo back in 2010. It's that many years. Right now I am typing this from Pixel 4a it's strangely noticeable how phones became big, powerful, and lost some buttons and audio jack.

Huawei Ideos: 104 x 54.8 x 13.5 mm (102g)

Jelly star: 95.1 x 49.6 x 18.7 mm (116g)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei_IDEOS

I like this. The only things I really use on my phone is the camera, gps and music. Occasionally, I'll check things on the web- but often, I will wait with that until I can sit down at my desk.

Unforunately, I'm somewhat involuntarily locked into the Apple "app ecosystem".

Would Google Fi support it? ... Interesting that they say it has "Google Certification" but no Fi support, which imho has International support (I live in the USA, but have traveled internationally with Pixel phones on Fi service with 0 issues for me )...

What Google Fi plan do you use? Do you really travel enough internationally to make it worth the cost?

You can turn on their international plan on a month-to-month basis fwiw

My 4yo son has to have a phone to control his medical devices, we use a Kin Kong mini 3, which is pretty good. It has a few draw backs, but it being a bit more rugged than the jelly phone is useful.

I would think this would be difficult to use for most apps.

It’s not 2009 anymore. App developers just assume a certain minimum screen size. While layouts are flexible they often just don’t work on smaller screens.

Maybe many people don't need "most apps."

I need about 5 apps and a nice camera.

“Most” is a LOT. Including probably the majority of those people would want.

cant upvote enough

though all the superfluous whitespace creeping up makes small screens tedious indeed

I think that's the idea, people buying these are probably hoping to reduce screen time

Overall these will massively increase screen time in the incarcerated populated

Recent Android versions are not very well suited for such small screens. But if it is possible to make such small phone, why not to settle on more reasonable phone size of about 4 inches?

or get rid of all the whitespace that's been creeping up since mobile took over.

dense interfaces are a sign of strong character

Ticks a lot of boxes for me: microSd and 3.5mm jack alone make this very useful. I'd pay extra if it supported video-out and some kind of desktop environment like my Samsung.

Unihertz is a chinese company which might be fine if I could replace the OS. But seems like there are no official LineageOS versions for this.

Other than that, this phone looks very nice.

There’s a new model on the way, with better specs: Jelly Max

I have an original Jelly and I love it. Highly recommend getting a tiny smartphone if you want to minimize your screen time

Might be slightly too big to smuggle in the old prison pocket

Some might stretch a long way to get a phone in prison.

Think of the biggest poop you've ever taken, then look critically at this phone.

I'm glad translucent plastics are coming back in style.

It is over 18 months old. Why is being promoted here now?

they will be launching an actual usable size phone soon

As in smaller or bigger? People are asking for a small phone, not bigger.

i don't think that smaller than the smallest would make much sense useabilitywise, but they are launching a phone with 5" screen soon, which ppl get excited over

I don’t think the latest Android is designed for 2000mAh phones. Maybe Android 4 or lower could theoretically work better with this capacity range.

If you can’t swallow it it’s not small enough.

Might be interesting device for kids, though I'd disable the camera and put it on a separate (guest) VLAN.

Wouldn't you want small bevels on a small phone to maximize the screen size for the overall package?

I am surprised by the lack of eSIM option, which unfortunately is a dealbreaker for me. :(

If I ever needed a second phone for work, something like this would be nice.

“3.5 mm Audio Jack”

Shut up and take my money.

Anyone recommend any other wild or weird good Android phones like this?

Pixel 4a with lineage os

I keep this in my bag with a prepaid SIM for emergencies

Why is it so overpriced? You can buy a smaller used iPhone or even Xiaomi for much less. I guess some people will buy anything if it is small enough.

The perfect smartphone to smuggle.

Depends on the IPS rating

esp. for such a small device a better screen to body ratio would be desirable.

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