this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2024

225 points (92.1% liked)

Android

28153 readers

645 users here now

DROID DOES

Welcome to the droidymcdroidface-iest, Lemmyest (Lemmiest), test, bestest, phoniest, pluckiest, snarkiest, and spiciest Android community on Lemmy (Do not respond)! Here you can participate in amazing discussions and events relating to all things Android.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules

1. All posts must be relevant to Android devices/operating system.

2. Posts cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

3. No spam, self promotion, or upvote farming. Sources engaging in these behavior will be added to the Blacklist.

4. Non-whitelisted bots will be banned.

5. Engage respectfully: Harassment, flamebaiting, bad faith engagement, or agenda posting will result in your posts being removed. Excessive violations will result in temporary or permanent ban, depending on severity.

6. Memes are not allowed to be posts, but are allowed in the comments.

7. Posts from clickbait sources are heavily discouraged. Please de-clickbait titles if it needs to be submitted.

8. Submission statements of any length composed of your own thoughts inside the post text field are mandatory for any microblog posts, and are optional but recommended for article/image/video posts.

Community Resources:

We are Android girls*,

In our Lemmy.world.

The back is plastic,

It's fantastic.

*Well, not just girls: people of all gender identities are welcomed here.

Our Partner Communities:

[email protected]

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

225

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)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/android

80 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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?

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] dual_sport_dork 78 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (6 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 8 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 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 7 points 8 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.

[–] snausagesinablanket 14 points 8 months ago

it has no 5G support

Ty for clarifying that.

[–] graymess 12 points 8 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?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That would likely be why they specified North America

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

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.

[–] Sanctus 45 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

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!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Is there a RemindMe bot yet on Lemmy?

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 32 points 8 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.

[+] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (7 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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".

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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. :)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

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...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

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.

load more comments (2 replies)

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] themeatbridge 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago

North america only frequencies, just so you know.

[–] stanleytweedle 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Unihertz Jelly Star

New band name, I called it!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

I am squatting on Jacuzzi Infection.

[–] Dolphinfreetuna 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (5 children)

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

load more comments (5 replies)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I actually just got one a few days ago. Only issue i have is if you have a usb c cable for power and audio for use on a car or something it gets confused and won't put audio through the cable. However standard usb c headphones do still work if you need them

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I didn't even know something like that was possible!

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Thanks for the solid writeup! 🙌

[–] Blaster_M 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Bands: 2G GSM (bands 2/3/5/8), 3G WCDMA (bands 1/2/4/5/6/8/19), 3G CDMA2000 (bands BC0/BC1), 4G FDD-LTE (bands 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/13/17/18/19/20/25/26/28A/28B/66), 4G TDD-LTE (bands 34/38/39/40/41)

As long as your carrier has LTE bands that it supports, I guess

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] glimse 4 points 8 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

[–] BeatTakeshi 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

@BeatTakeshi @unknowing8343
asus had a gold on their hands with compact zenfones, then they had to mess it up by 2 years of support and an unlocked bootloader (which i would be personally fine with if the support was more than 2 years)

[–] metaphortune 4 points 8 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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

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 5 points 8 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

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] Hiro8811 4 points 8 months ago

The spech is amazing, that's practically what I want in a phone, although I have one more requirement: Qualcomm CPU. I wanna install custom ROMs

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 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

[–] Chainweasel 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Man I wish I knew about this a few weeks ago, I just replaced my pixel 5 that broke with a cheap OnePlus Nord N30 and let me tell you, I fucking hate this phone lol. If I could justify spending more money right now I'd replace it with this.

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments