Introducing Unihertz Jelly Star - The world's smallest Android 13 smartphone with a transparent design and LED light. This phone packs advanced features into a credit card-sized body, including an Octa-Core 6nm MediaTek Helio G99 processor, 8GB RAM, 256GB of storage memory, and a powerful 48MP rear camera. With a 3-inch screen, the Jelly Star is incredibly portable and perfect for on-the-go use. Plus, its unique transparent back and LED light make it a conversation starter. Don't miss out on this innovative phone that has received overwhelming attention from phone tech enthusiasts. Order yours today from the official Unihertz store.
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.
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.
Not too bad. Lacking band 71 won’t really matter on t-mobile as they are flipping that to full 5G in many markets. Band 41 still exists for speed in most places for now.
Missing band 14 will hurt long range coverage on at&t though, but still has 12 and 5 for long range on at&t (places like Nebraska where at&t doesn’t have any band 12 or 5 will have a bad time though.)
Band 13 means Verizon long range will work, if Verizon allows it on the network.
Fuck, man. That looks amazing and it kind of turns the Jelly Star into what I always wanted; a fully functional phone with controller hardware, small enough to easily pocket the entire thing. I almost regret passing on this phone now.
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
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
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.
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
All of them, as far as I can see. We do not live in a city, so maybe the 5G will come here eventually but the majority of my state is still covered by LTE. 3G is dead of course, but he gets as good of cellular coverage as I do?
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.
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.
I don’t think 4G will get outdated in the next 5 years considering that 4G devices are still being launched today… And also considering that most people are just connected to Wi-Fi anyways…
I think we can be fine with this phone for 4/5 years and the Jelly Star 5G will probably be out there when the time comes.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Interesting company, I considered getting their “tank” when I needed a new phone a few months ago, although I decided to go with doogee instead. As the name implies it’s rather the opposite of this.
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Headphone jacks, IR blasters, AND an FM radio? This phone never left the rad days of android.
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
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!
Is there a RemindMe bot yet on Lemmy?
Not that I know of unfortunately.
!Remindme 1 day
New band name, I called it!
I am squatting on Jacuzzi Infection.
They have another one with Android 8 that is 2x lighter:
https://www.unihertz.com/products/jelly-pro
Unfortunately the main use of smart phones is still web browsing, which continues to demand bigger screens and faster CPUs.
Unrelated, but I just want to say thank you for actually posting content that is relevant to the community. It’s enjoyable and appreciated.
I love the idea! If there was good support from something like GrapheneOS or /e/OS I would be looking at one of these.
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.
Sell it!
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
Not too bad. Lacking band 71 won’t really matter on t-mobile as they are flipping that to full 5G in many markets. Band 41 still exists for speed in most places for now.
Missing band 14 will hurt long range coverage on at&t though, but still has 12 and 5 for long range on at&t (places like Nebraska where at&t doesn’t have any band 12 or 5 will have a bad time though.)
Band 13 means Verizon long range will work, if Verizon allows it on the network.
There’s a pretty neat gaming case available for this as well https://lemux.minnix.dev/post/203271
Fuck, man. That looks amazing and it kind of turns the Jelly Star into what I always wanted; a fully functional phone with controller hardware, small enough to easily pocket the entire thing. I almost regret passing on this phone now.
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
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.
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
I don’t think that is possible, I believe one of the two slots is nanoSIM only, but will report back.
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.
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.
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
What country?
US
deleted by creator
All of them, as far as I can see. We do not live in a city, so maybe the 5G will come here eventually but the majority of my state is still covered by LTE. 3G is dead of course, but he gets as good of cellular coverage as I do?
All of them.
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.
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.
deleted by creator
I don’t think 4G will get outdated in the next 5 years considering that 4G devices are still being launched today… And also considering that most people are just connected to Wi-Fi anyways…
I think we can be fine with this phone for 4/5 years and the Jelly Star 5G will probably be out there when the time comes.
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.
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.
Nobody is disabling 4G bands except the bands they lied about being 4G in the first place?
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?
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.
Ty for clarifying that.
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
That would likely be why they specified North America
I’m just adding that it’s not the de facto just because it is in the US
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
Interesting company, I considered getting their “tank” when I needed a new phone a few months ago, although I decided to go with doogee instead. As the name implies it’s rather the opposite of this.