Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard

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I've got major doubts on a lot of these claims. Shimmying modern Android into an e-Ink display and physical keyboard is going to be a strange experience even if you truly want a zero-distraction phone.

Supposedly it's going to protect your privcy but they also claim you can just download apps from the Play store. Seems like a bit of an unnecessary promise.

Navigation with map apps in particular is going to be awful on the e-ink display. Really, a lot of "basic" non-social media non-addicting apps involve a lot of motion that plain and simple isn't designed for e-ink. Uber is highlighted as one of these apps that you might want to use without a distracting smartphone, but think about how much motion is involved with the Uber user interface when you use it. The whole interface plus the map is doing a bunch of smooth motions that do not take low refresh rates into account.

The physical keyboard basically has to be there due to the shortcomings of the display, but I think when you go back to physical keyboards on phones you'll quickly realize that they are awful to type on compared to modern predictive autocorrect. They also can't adapt at all to the specific apps on the system. Say goodbye to emojis, stickers, and GIFs when you talk to your friends! Imagine what Slack will look like on this thing, and that's an app I have to use for work!

Another odd claim is that the device will be $400 but be available with early bird discounts below that! That's an impossible price for an incredibly niche phone with heavily customized software.

One last comment on this concept: when you think about the most mainstream smartphones in the world, what is the most physically distinguishing physical feature on them – the one cosmetic feature that identifies the phone with a brand? That's right, the cameras. That's no coincidence: it's the most important feature of the smartphone. It isn't mentioned at all with this phone, and questions about it on the AMA were ignored.

At face value it seems like video calls and perhaps even sending simple photographs will be a major challenge on this phone. I think most people who want to curb smartphone addiction aren't looking to compromise healthy things like sending photos and videos to their family and friends.

I just get a feeling from the AMA [1] that this company is biting off more than they can chew.

Finally, it's plainly obvious that you can get all of the "unique" features of this phone by setting up simple OS settings, like setting your screen to greyscale and setting up screen time/disallowing social media app installs. Essentially, this company is trying to sell an OS preference pane as a standalone product. It will fail.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMinimalCompany/comments/19a6xr5/...

Lack of 5G is a major oversight. The iPhone had that 4 years ago. Good condition iPhone 12 models go for under $300, and they want to sell this thing for $400.

Seems like it's better to grab an iPhone 12, set the screen to greysfale in the accessibility settings, and then turn on screen time to block social media apps and other distractions.

An OS settings preference selection isn't a product.

I totally agree with you, I'm not saying there shouldn't be the Play Store on this device. What I mean here is that in the context of the questions about privacy, I think it's odd that the company is making broad privacy promises while still claiming to give you the full Play Store.

They make it sound like it's a more privacy-concious device than a standard Android phone with Google Play Services, but in reality it's just an Android phone.