A Phone You’ll Want to Use Less

For years, I dreamed of somebody releasing a fully-featured smartphone with an E-Paper show within the US. The Minimal Phone is that telephone and extra, because of the included bodily keyboard. This can be a good choice for anybody conversant in E-Paper who’s looking out for an intentional telephone nonetheless appropriate with trendy digital life.

Minimal Telephone

$400 $500 Save
$100

The Minimal Telephone is a distinct segment E Ink smartphone operating a full model of Android on an E Ink show. The telephone additionally packs a 35-button keyboard, increasing its attraction past these trying to cut back telephone dependancy and reclaim their focus. It additionally makes for a pleasant pocket eReader.

Execs & Cons

• E-Paper display screen delivers on promise of lowering temptation
• Bodily keyboard is a delight to see
• Glorious battery life
• Good name high quality

• The gradual E-Paper refresh fee makes the telephone really feel gradual
• The digital camera actually is subpar
• The typing expertise could be hit and miss

See Our Course of

How We Test and Review Products at How-To Geek

We go hands-on with each product to make sure it is value your money and time.

Worth and Availability

The Minimal Telephone is on the market straight from the Minimal Firm’s web site. It is available in three colours: Pebble (white), Onyx (black), and Fusion (white with a black bezel across the display screen).

There are two fashions. The model with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage prices $500, whereas the 8GB RAM mannequin with 256GB of storage goes for $600. Each costs are lowered by $100 in the course of the pre-order interval.

An Unconventional, Retro Design

The Minimal Telephone could be succinctly described as an E-Paper, Android-powered Blackberry. The entrance of the telephone has a 4.3-inch show with a bodily keyboard containing 35 keys. In between the 2, there are three old-school capacitive buttons for returning to the house display screen, going to a earlier display screen, and opening current apps.

The telephone has all of the ports and buttons you’d anticipate if this have been a telephone launched a number of years in the past, which means there’s each a microSD card slot and a headphone jack. On the fitting aspect, there’s a energy button that doubles as a fingerprint scanner. On the left, there are two quantity buttons with an E-Paper refresh button sandwiched in between, along with a SIM card tray that additionally has house for the microSD card. The underside has a USB-C port, microphone, and audio system, together with the aforementioned 3.5mm headphone jack. There’s a 5MP front-facing digital camera and a single 16MP rear-facing digital camera with flash.

The telephone is not a lot smaller than trendy telephones, regardless of its identify and the small show. Because of the bodily keys populating the world beneath the display screen, the telephone comes out to five.59 inches tall and eight.6mm thick. It is the width that stands out most to me. At 3.07 inches extensive, it feels just like the widest non-foldable telephone I’ve held. For comparability, a Pixel 9 is 9mm taller, 0.1mm thinner, and 7mm much less extensive.

The Bodily Keys Are a Blessing and a Curse

The keyboard is the rationale I am prepared to miss these dimensions. My first telephone was Verizon’s Alias characteristic telephone, and my first sensibletelephone was the Kyocera Milano, adopted by the Kyocera Rise. All three of those telephones had bodily keyboards. The nostalgia I felt when choosing up the Minimal Telephone was fast and robust. There’s one thing viscerally satisfying about typing with bodily buttons.

But, to be sincere, I nonetheless kind quicker on a touchscreen. This might change with time, maybe, if I invested months, letting my fingers get acclimated. In the interim, I can peck out phrases faster on my Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6’s narrower cowl show. On that telephone’s bigger inner display screen that I am extra snug with, it actually isn’t any comparability.

A lot of the difficulty comes right down to the position of alternate characters. I discover ending one sentence with a interval and capitalizing the primary letter of the following to be a tedious affair. That is one thing a software program replace can repair, however for now, this was my most frequent frustration and one which inspired me to make use of voice dictation extra typically than I do with the Samsung Keyboard. Equally, choosing characters not current on any of the bodily keys feels particularly jarring since it’s a must to transition as much as the touchscreen.

The Similar Is True of the E-Paper Show

E-Paper makes a digital floor appear like a bodily one. The expertise is mostly reserved for eReaders just like the Kindle and the assorted choices from Kobo. Firms like Boox stretch the expertise so far as it should go, releasing note-taking tablets and full-featured E-Paper Android tablets. The corporate advertises its Boox Tab Ultra C Pro as a full e-paper PC, and the tiny Boox Palma 2 eReader is basically a smartphone with out the telephone bits.

Whereas there are colour E-Paper shows, the one on the Minimal Telephone is black and white. It could possibly show any Android app, however every little thing is not at all times legible. The nuances of an app’s design are sometimes misplaced, with delicate gradients showing merely as white. Whereas trendy LCD and OLED panels supply builders thousands and thousands of colours to work with, E-Paper screens can solely handle restricted shades of grey.

The refresh fee is arguably tougher to regulate to. Virtually any trendy finances telephone will really feel quicker than the MInimal Telephone, not due to the specs, however solely because of the limitations of E-Paper.

You’ll be able to regulate the refresh fee a bit to compensate for this. The telephone defaults to a gradual setting that retains the display screen wanting its greatest however introduces fairly a little bit of lag. A quicker refresh fee feels extra like an LCD panel, however this introduces extra ghosting (the phenomenon the place a part of the earlier display screen stays seen after you load a brand new one), which is why the bodily E-Paper refresh button exists between the quantity keys to clear issues up.

Nonetheless, when you’ve got ever used an eReader, you already know there’s nothing fairly like E-Paper for studying ebooks. I can fully perceive why any ebook nerd would purchase this telephone for that reason alone.

Good Name High quality and Any Chat App You Like

One difficulty that has plagued some minimalist telephones is their incapability to function first rate telephones. What in the end induced me to cease utilizing the Gentle Telephone 2 wasn’t all of the options I had to surrender. It was the poor cell reception on account of its weak mobile radios.

I used to be involved in regards to the Minimal Telephone since it is a 4G LTE telephone with no entry to 5G. But its radio appears to be extra highly effective than the Gentle Telephone 2’s, as I used to be simply in a position to deal with calls within the rural areas the place I dwell and journey. The audio system do not get as loud as I like, however the name high quality was good, and I used to be instructed I sounded nice on the opposite finish, maybe even higher than I often do on my Galaxy Z Fold 6. That is no small factor, contemplating the worth distinction between these two telephones.

That is one minimalist telephone that does not require you to inform your contacts to attempt sending you an e-mail as an alternative of utilizing their most well-liked chat app. The telephone comes with Google Messages, and also you’re free to put in WhatsApp, Sign, and the like. They work as anticipated, simply in black and white.

All The Software program You Want However Will not Wish to Use

The telephone runs Android 14 and comes with full entry to the Play Retailer, setting it aside from most different intentional telephones. You’ll be able to set up any app you need. The guiding philosophy is that, because of the E-Paper show, you in all probability will not wish to hassle with most of them. Whilst you can sign up to video platforms and obtain video games, you will not have an excellent time with both. TikTok and Instagram will maintain a lot much less attraction as properly.

The benefit right here is that you could proceed to participate in all of the expectations of contemporary life. You’ll be able to scan QR codes out in public. You’ll be able to nonetheless use two-factor authentication apps and proceed cell banking. If somebody sends you a photograph or needs to video chat, you’ll be able to participate with out having to clarify to individuals that you’ve some type of quirky telephone. Yeah, you in all probability will not be capable to make out a lot within the photograph or within the video name, however how a lot that issues is determined by the context. Typically, you’ll be able to pretend it sufficient to maintain the dialog going with out making issues awkward.

With the Minimal Firm being such a brand new and small staff, it stays to be seen if prospects will obtain ongoing software program updates as time goes on. At launch, the telephone is already old-fashioned, since Android 15 has been out there since final Fall. Android telephones are sometimes gradual to obtain updates, however will Minimal Telephone prospects nonetheless be on Android 14 when Android 16 rolls round? Will these telephones ever see Android 17? That is the gamble you’ve to bear in mind when shopping for an experimental telephone like this. On the flip aspect, if everybody opts to attend and see, then the reply will most undoubtedly be “no.”

Stellar Battery Life That is Typically Unhealthy

The Minimal Telephone has wonderful battery life. Should you use this telephone as meant—as in, as little as potential—then you’ll seemingly see battery life lasting a number of days. With the telephone largely simply mendacity round, I began pondering of battery life when it comes to getting me by means of a lot of the week slightly than getting me by means of a lot of the day.

Then again, the battery life drained considerably rapidly after I used the telephone extensively. Whereas the telephone has a bodily keyboard that tempts you to kind, every character you kind causes the telephone to make use of extra energy. But that is not as large a battery drain as scrolling is.

That is the character of E-Paper. The show expertise would not use any energy when idle. As an alternative, it attracts energy at any time when the display screen adjustments. Since altering what you see entails shifting bodily particles round, and E-Paper expertise was by no means designed for clean animations, the fast refreshes required to depict typing and scrolling put way more of a damage in your battery life than it does on different telephones. Consequently, throughout instances of heavy utilization, the Minimal Telephone can return again to being a one or two-day telephone.

A Digicam That is Barely Higher Than Doing With out

The Minimal Telephone has a 16MP rear-facing digital camera that allows you to seize moments and ship image messages such as you would on an everyday telephone. That is performance missing on many intentionally minimalist telephones, and it units the Minimal Telephone aside.

That mentioned, identical to the show expertise discourages you from actively utilizing the gadget, the display screen and chosen digital camera {hardware} mixed discourage you from taking photos.

Making an attempt to border a shot on an E-Paper display screen the place you’ll be able to barely make out what is going on on is an train in frustration. After you are taking the picture, the black-and-white show can solely give you a tough thought of how the picture got here out. Should you select to ship it to somebody, you are largely at nighttime about whether or not your photograph had movement blur or if the topic was out of focus. Put together to change into that particular person family and friends affiliate with taking crappy pictures.

Even if you happen to take an ideal shot, the picture processing leaves a lot to be desired. Pictures taken below good lighting circumstances can present the phantasm of being a good picture. Nonetheless, the main points fall away the second you zoom in, revealing a photograph that appears prefer it was crafted with watercolor. Photographs taken indoors aren’t dressed and presentable sufficient to go away the home. Should you attempt to seize a baby’s early moments with this digital camera, anticipate to look by means of your picture gallery years later with remorse as a result of now your photographic reminiscence is as fuzzy as your precise one, and you may’t return to take them once more.

There’s additionally a 5MP front-facing digital camera. Should you’re anticipating to make use of it for video calls, do not anticipate a lot. A minimum of you’ll be able to have the peace of thoughts that you just look higher on their display screen than you do on yours. By how a lot? Most likely lower than you need.

Ought to You Purchase the Minimal Telephone?

The Minimal Phone is arriving at virtually the identical time because the Gentle Telephone 3, probably the most well-known and widely-covered of intentional minimal telephones. It is the large fish in a small pond. But the Minimal Telephone is the extra viable choice for all these use circumstances, the Gentle Telephone 3 nonetheless would not serve properly. Every little thing from accessing electrical automobile charging networks to managing mesh routers is definitely possible on the Minimal Telephone. Utilizing this gadget can have the specified impact in your smartphone utilization with out breaking all these different workflows that do not contribute in any strategy to social media dependancy or binge-watching.

For anybody who has used a minimalist telephone up to now or has ever picked up a tool just like the Boox Palma, then the Minimal Telephone is a straightforward suggestion. You have already got an thought what its limitations are, and the extra telephone bits have been very properly carried out. It is good to put telephone calls with dependable sign (your mileage might differ) and textual content individuals utilizing acquainted apps on such a novel gadget. However if you happen to’re choosing up the Minimal Telephone as a result of its keyboard provides you Blackberry vibes and also you wish to see what that is about, the remainder of the expertise may be greater than you bargained for.

Minimal Telephone

$400 $500 Save
$100

The Minimal Telephone is a distinct segment E Ink smartphone operating a full model of Android on an E Ink show. The telephone additionally packs a 35-button keyboard, increasing its attraction past these trying to cut back telephone dependancy and reclaim their focus. It additionally makes for a pleasant pocket eReader.