The Minimal Phone is the first E-Ink QWERTY Android smartphone in the world. Smartphones are getting boring with their designs and UIs. The Minimal Company is here to bring some exciting changes. Here are some features of The Minimal Phone that can excite you.
In this article
Design | E-Ink Display | Physical Keyboard | Hardware | Software | Shooters | Battery | Connectivity | Release Date & Price
Design
The phone comes with a dimension of 5.59 inch x 3.07 inch x 0.34 inch in a boxy shape. Starting from the front side, the speaker and Proximity sensor are located at the top. A 4.3-inch screen ends with a navigation bar and a trackpad. The questionably exclusive 35-key physical keyboard resides underneath. Interestingly, the selfie camera is an optional feature that is housed at the left bottom corner beside the left shift key.
At the top, there is a 3.5-mm headphone jack in the right corner. Can you believe a 3.5-mm headphone jack these days? Neither do we.
Apart from that, the dual SIM card tray, as well as the expandable SD card slot are at the top. A mic, USB Type-C port, and another speaker are seen at the bottom of the phone.
The Volume Up button, E-Ink Refresh button, and Volume Down button are on the upper left side. The power Button/ Fingerprint Sensor is on the right side.
At the back, there is a 16-MP shooter at the top left, discussed later. A rectangular dual-flash sits beside the main shooter.
E-Ink Display
Let’s talk about the E-Ink display. Unlike the newer OLED or LTPO panels, an E-Ink display is easier on the eyes and offers significantly better screen time by consuming less power. Thus, this is probably the best device for prolonged reading sessions. At the same time, one should not experience eye strain while using The Minimal Phone. Interestingly, the display gives more of a paper like feel.
Speaking of enhanced readability, the screen has a 4.3-inch 600 x 800 pixel display with a 4:3 aspect ratio and 230 PPI. The display is also glare-free for an immersive reading experience under bright lighting conditions and energy efficiency.
Physical Keyboard
Remember those Blackberry phones with QWERTY keyboards? Well, The Minimal Phone comes with a full QWERTY keyboard with 35 keys including 1 Hot key. For accuracy and speed, this physical keyboard should beat touchscreens with its tactility and 75 mm width keys. These keys can travel a distance of 0.015 mm, which gives a decent feel while typing. Moreover, the sound produced by the mechanical movement of the physical keys is very satisfying.
Hardware
The Minimal Phone is powered by an 8-core 6-nm MediaTek Helio G99 (MTK6789) chip and an ARM Mali-G57 MC2 GPU. This SoC also comes with a MediaTek APU 2.0 AI processing unit. Paired with 6 GB LPDDR4X RAM, this phone can capture 2K videos at up to 30 fps, including encoding and decoding. An SD card can expand storage up to 128 GB, storing all those 2K videos.
Software
The Minimal Phone runs on Android 14. You can use all the Android 14 features on this phone without any issues with the user experience being very unique.
Shooters
This phone is not for selfie-takers or models and is more of a productivity device. However, The Minimal Phone has a 16-MP main shooter. You can capture impressive photos and record great videos with this sensor, which is capable of shooting 2K videos up to 30 fps.
There is a decent 5-MP front-facing shooter. The selfie camera does well with selfies and video calls.
Battery
The 3,000-mAh (Li-Ion polymer) battery on this phone offers an impressive screen time of around 6.5+ hours. The phone comes with 15W Qi wireless charging as well.
Connectivity
The phone comes with NFC, Bluetooth 5.2 BLE, WiFi 5 (a/b/g/n/ac), and GPS. Also, there are supports for dual SIM, dual standby, and 4G LTE on both SIMs. More details are coming soon.
Release Date & Price
This interesting phone is assumed to be released in December 2024. The engineering samples are undergoing last-minute tests and checks. According to another source, The Minimal Phone may debut around early 2025 with a price tag of $399.
Wrapping up
The Minimal Phone is one of those phones that are fun to use. The device focuses mostly on communications. You can read books, write an email, or chat with friends with great user experience on this device. No device can beat a full-sized QWERTY physical keyboard on a 4.3-inch smartphone.
Comment below what your thoughts are. Share with your family and friends if you find this article interesting. Let us know if you have any leaks or want to share something with us.
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