Unihertz Jelly Star, The World's Smallest 4G Android 13 Smartphone Transparent Design LED Light NFC OTG, Blue (Support T-Mobile & Verizon only)

I really love the Unihertz Jelly Star tiny phone! The unboxing was a lot of fun with the cool packaging design. At first it seems like a plump little phone, but it is so perfectly ergonomic in the hand. The screen protector and clear case are pre-installed which is a great practice. It is easy to hold and easy to pocket in my straight fit pants. I ran 6 miles with it on the first day connected to my Fitbit and it was a great experience. I listened to a podcast, was using GPS, and bluetooth Jlab sport headphones were connected, and it handled it all no problem. Also, it was so nice to have a small device with me as opposed to my giant Moto G G5. The screen is crisp and it will take you a bit to get used to the tiny yet useable scale of the Android and app UI. The phone call quality blows my Moto G series phones away and my wife says I sound great. The speaker phone is very loud and of decent quality. The battery life seems pretty good and should last me a 1 1/2 day with my use of running, podcasts, and communications with family. The fingerprint sensor is so good and is in just the right place on the back of the Jelly. I love the programmable red button, and have it set to Google Assistant so I can ask it to tell me jokes :) If you long press the shortcut button you get the flashlight by default which I love. The keyboard seems ridiculously small but somehow it works well, and I can swipe type pretty easily. The back LED glyph lights seem like a fun gimmick, and they are and bring me joy in how they are used. I did disable them for music, but it is fun to show off for your kids. I love how they notify you when you are charging, receive a notification so you don't need to look at your phone, and have a neat sound paired with them. Also, there is a front notification light that takes me back to my Blackberry days! This phone seems to get out of the way and alerts you without the need to be drawn into your screen. I don't know about the camera quite yet, but I am sure it is a decent enough shooter for my needs at 48 MP. This might be my perfect minimalist phone paired with the Indistractable Launcher. This takes me back to when phones were fun and I am sure you will enjoy it too if you are looking for a tool and to get away from large screen phablets that have taken over and are designed to make us addicted. I hope Unihertz keeps making phones at this sale and add 5g next please.

I love my mini cell phone. My friends say it's too small, but not for me. The small size of the Jelly Star helps to keep my phone in proper proportion in my life, while still providing the conveniences I need, like travel apps and music.

I really really really wanted to love this phone. And I kinda do, but it fails in one really important way: reliability. Let me elaborate:I wanted a small phone because I want to emphasize the point that this is a tool. And I want this tool to be optimized for it's primary use case in my life: to speed up information flow. I want to be able to quickly pull it out of my pocket, jump to an app, do some quick interactions and information consumption, and put it back in my pocket. Or, do some focus work or reading on my bed, like I am typing this review out now on the jelly star. All with minimal hiccups, distractions, and interruptions.Anything else, like videos, games, social media- I don't mind if that experience sucks, because those are better saved for being intentionally done on a computer where the experience is gonna be way better than any phone ever could be.So, "reliability", and does it consistently "speed up information flow" in my life? No, unfortunately it does not. I'll highlight why in order of importance: Verizon issues, fingerprint reader issues, charger compatibility issues, battery life, Android issues.Verizon: The only thing worse than trying to get driving navigation on a 3 inch screen is that you also have no signal most of the time. I'm impressed that it works* on Verizon, the Jelly Star isn't certified and all the critical features appear to work- when I have a connection. The issue is that I have been experiencing way more signal dead zones around Seattle than I'm used to. On paper, the phone has LTE bands 2, 4, and 13, which to my knowledge should be everything needed for Verizon LTE, but something isn't working as well as other phones.The fingerprint reader fails more than I'm used to, to the point where it would be faster on average to turn off the fingerprint sensor and get used to typing in the pin every time. It should be done better than this, other fingerprint sensors are fine for me.I often charge my phone using Apple USB c MacBook chargers. But this phone doesn't accept charge from some of them, some of the time.The battery life is not good. On paper it should be okay, but in practice it is not. I lose about 20% per hour of active use, and a staggering 4% per hour of standby. So if I go to bed with it at 36% and it's not on the charger it will probably be dead in the morning.What all these issues build up to is that this phone ends up failing its primary purpose for me -speed up information flow in my life- because it constantly interrupts me with these annoying functional issues. It's arguably worse than being interrupted by social media apps! I believe there are better tools available for that job, not because I think they have a design better than the jelly star (they don't), but because they're more reliable- and that matters a lot to me.4/5 stars because there's so much good here. I'd encourage you to check it out if you think you'll like it, because most of the issues I've had are fickle and could be better for someone else. But I also think that most people considering this phone are also looking for a reliable "tool" rather than a distraction box, and in that way I can't really recommend it based on my experience.I could see myself owning a future successor to this phone. Please make more phones like this Unihertz, or anyone. Preferably with ergonomics more like the iPhone 4- and don't forget to make it a reliable tool.

This is the most amazing phone I've ever used. My screen time is down from an average of 7 hours a day to about 2 hours a day, most of that being unavoidable. I never feel trapped like I did with other dumb phones, because this is a full Android. When I use it, it has my full attention, so there's no more flipping back and forth between the TV and the phone. I did almost return it because it wasn't reading my fingerprint well, but I found a solution. Register your finger several times from different positions, but each time you go to register don't bother moving your finger around, just keep tapping it around the center of your finger over and over again. Now it works all the time. If this phone breaks or dies, I'll be buying a new one to replace it immediately. I love it.