If you really want a smaller phone, try the little Jelly 2

Have you been regretting that the new iPhone SE is too big? Unihertz could have the solution. The Jelly 2, which launches today on Kickstarter, is a really small phone, apparently the smallest 4G phone in the world with Android 10. How small I tried to look it up on my desktop to help inspire a good description of this sentence, and finally got it I found it under the remote control of my air conditioner. Now it’s in the coin pocket of my jeans to store it.

The Jelly 2 is the successor to Unihertz’s first phone, the original Jelly of 2017. My former colleague Michael Zelenko tested the Jelly a couple of years ago as part of a roundup of minimalist phones, and his main criticisms were an unusable software keyboard. , poor battery life and too much functionality to let it unplug. Jelly 2 solves two of those problems.

I never tried the first Jelly, but its sequel feels much more practical, at least to some degree. Unihertz has given you a 3-inch 480×384 screen, which is obviously very small, but the 20 percent increase in size makes a big difference. You can now see five full tweets on the screen at once, for example, as long as they only contain a few words each. And while I wouldn’t want to type much more than a couple of sentences, the keyboard is practically viable for quick searches, chat replies, etc.

The Jelly 2 doesn’t exactly have small bezels, but the display makes much more efficient use of the phone’s physical space, making the device just slightly larger overall than the original. While the panel isn’t the most vibrant I’ve ever seen, it’s sharp enough, and let’s be honest, you’re not buying this for photo editing or movie watching. Unihertz’s 4-inch Atom XL feels much better suited for general smartphone use, if you’re not willing to go that small.

The performance of the MediaTek Helio P60 processor is not what I would call fiery, but it is more than adequate for the type of actions I expected the Jelly 2 to take. With such a small screen, it’s not even worth trying to run hardcore multitasking. I played a couple of Asphalt 9 races to test the performance and it was remarkably low resolution, but most games really couldn’t be played on a screen like this, even with unlimited horsepower.

As for the battery life, I found it reasonable in my tests. There’s a 2000 mAh battery inside, which is small by Android phone standards, but most Android phones don’t have to power 3-inch displays, and this is more than double the capacity of the original Jelly. For the expected use case of “keep it mostly in your pocket and use it only when you really need it” instead of the typical endless doomscrolling and 4K video recording phone scenario, I think Jelly 2 will be fine.

Speaking of the camera, there is a 16-megapixel sensor on the back and an 8-megapixel sensor for selfies. The main camera isn’t great, as expected, but it does the job as long as you only see the photos on the small screen. However, most real cameras have larger screens than the Jelly 2, so you should probably carry one of them too if you plan to visit a dark or beautiful place.

Some other notes on hardware. This phone is 16.5mm thick, which sounds excessive, but given the small footprint it actually makes it feel reassuring, like a stone. The rear mounted fingerprint sensor is by far the worst I have ever used and might not exist. You get 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage. There is a headphone jack, so you could use it as a compact MP3 player if you want.

If the idea of ​​an Android phone about the size of a small potato appeals to you, the Jelly 2 is as good an example as I can imagine someone actually doing. With the Kickstarter price starting at $ 129, it wouldn’t have to be your only phone, either. I can’t say I need the Jelly 2 very much, but I still appreciate Unihertz’s devotion to making ultra niche devices. I’m sure Jelly 2 is exactly what a very small number of people have been waiting for.