Unihertz Atom - The World's Smallest 4G Rugged Smartphone with Android 9.0 Pie, Unlocked, 4GB RAM, and 64GB ROM (T-Mobile & Verizon Support)

So, I like to support things I love, and things that are different. I have to say, I've really fallen for this little phone. It's called the Atom, as in the smallest unit of matter. And it's made by a strange-phone-producing company called Unihertz. I just want to endorse this phone because it's so dang cool, feels great, and it just plain gets out of my way. For people who don't want to stare at screens when they leave the office, people who would rather spend time with family instead of social networks, and for people who don't want to carry around an enormous wafer of glass in their pocket, this little thing fits the bill. Great for phone calls, calendar, the occasional note or photo. You can even search things on the web, if you really want to. It's just as fast as a giant rectangle and can do the same stuff. But with a screen just over 2", not wanting to spend a beautiful, sunny day on your phone is kind of the point here. As it should be. For my phone wish list, while the Atom doesn't quite check all of the boxes I would like, it does check a lot of them. I didn't realize a phone's form factor would be so important, but that's become my favorite thing about this phone. It's hilariously fun to make calls on this little thing, and it feels GREAT in the hand. So HOW could the Atom be improved? Here are a few things... On Cloud Avoidance For those weird ones among us who want to avoid cloud services, the Atom needs much better USB sync with the Mac. Once you get the hang of USB settings on the phone, third party SyncMate sort of works, but it's slow and cumbersome and sometimes only works if the phone is kept active through the sync. And if you have an old calendar, a lot of contacts, and a few photos, SyncMate will time out every time. You have to rely on manually exporting photos using Android File Transfer. Seriously? This is all a royal pain in 2022 that ought not exist. On Ditching Google Like most Android phones, Google has its tentacles wrapped around the Atom phone. Want to download an app? You have to sign into Google, or find some alternative. Directions? Google. Not to mention Google tracks everything. I realize that escaping Google for syncing, directions, etc. is quite the feat unless you're a Librem 5, a PinePhone or a ClearPHONE. But I wish more companies would try to do it. Seems like Unihertz, with their Apple-like "think different" approach is in a good place to put the "hertz" on Google. I wish they would. On Beefing Up the Battery The battery on the Atom is decent. It will last about a day. Maybe a day and a half with low use. And it might be better still than the tiny Palm Phone. But it could be better. If it would last 3-4 days like my old BlackBerry Classic, you'd really have something. On Right to Repair Lastly, right to repair. Unihertz, please take a cue from companies like FairPhone. Make your phones user upgradable and repairable! List parts and prices on your website and provide instructions to users. At least make the battery easily replaceable. Sustainability is fine, but it's mostly about convenience and long product life for me. On Carrier and Purchase Availability As of this writing, AT&T has booted me, a customer for over a decade, off of their network citing that they would no longer support the Atom. Unihertz says that Verizon will support this phone so long as the SIM card is activated in another phone and the IMEI numbers on the phone are updated (instructions for which are available through Unihertz customer care). Verizon will neither confirm nor deny this, though I have briefly used their prepaid plan with the Atom following this method and the Atom's convenient dual-SIM feature. Enter T-Mobile. To my surprise and glee, T-Mobile openly still supports the Atom, per their customer care AND as reflected through their website's "bring your own phone" IMEI search. So far, the phone works great on T-Mobile, and I'm happy with the service. In short, there needs to be more support for the Atom in the U.S. And there should be more places to buy it and other unique phones like this. You can forget finding the Atom locally, and that's a crying shame. Personally, I blame Americans, with our tendency to buy whatever top corporations sell in the phone stores. We need to work on that. In Summary... I wouldn't say these were cons to me purchasing the phone, so much as they are a "wish list" of things I might like to see next in future iterations of the phone, and upgrades to be made. For me, though the Unihertz Atom doesn't have a perfect score for my wishlist, I would say its most endearing feature, being size, outshines every other phone I've looked at. And that's why I got it. This tiny thing is still such a novelty to me that I can't seem to get over. In terms of form factor and general function, I think Unihertz hit this one out of the park. Looking forward to seeing what comes next for the Atom.

I've been looking for a smartphone that isn't massive like all the mainstream behemoths. This is the best one I can find so far. To be honest, it's not my ideal phone, but it's close. I have the Jelly pro, and would stick with that, but the battery life on that phone is abysmal. It's great to be able to swap it easily, but if I'm swapping because it doesn't last more than a few hours, that's no good. The Atom has more than double the capacity, and that's enough. I'd still like to be able to swap the battery out easily, but I understand that the Atom is designed as a rugged/waterproof phone, so it makes sense that you can't. Battery life is good, it lasted all day for me YMMV. Compared to the Jelly pro, this phone is pretty thick and heavy. I assume a fair amount of that space and weight is due to the larger battery. It would be amazing if the screen took up nearly all the face of the device like mainstream trends, but that's a compromise I'm willing to live with. I love how small it is, but I'd actually prefer a slightly larger screen. The precision of the touch interface is incredible for a screen this size. I have large fingers, and I rarely select something I'm not aiming for. The only problem I've found with the screen size and touch precision is when using a swype style keyboard, it just doesn't have enough room to read the swipes accurately. If I type out letters individually it has no problems with accuracy. Considering the fact that half a dozen keys fall under my finger when I type, I'm blown away with it's ability to know what I'm going for. Since it's so small I turned on the "play all audio as mono", and it works just fine. I didn't see the point of stereo audio when the speakers are only inches apart. It is loud enough that I can use it as an alarm. Bluetooth has connected perfectly anytime I've used it thus far. I've had no random disconnects or any other issues whatsoever. My Project Fi sim card worked without any trouble, but it reads it as T-Mobile only. Wish it had an SD card slot, but with 64gb of internal storage, this isn't a big deal. The camera is usable quality, but I've only taken two pictures so far, so I can't really judge. One photo was the standard 16mp 4:3 without HDR, the other was 8mp 4:3 with HDR. The HDR was clearer/better. I don't take a lot of pictures anyway, so I'm not the greatest to rate quality. The fingerprint reader doesn't pick up my finger every time, but does at least 50% of the time. I think it's more because you can only have it recognize a small part of your print due to it's small size. To help with this, I put in my thumb print as separate prints, just from different angles. The processor and RAM are certainly enough. I haven't had it freeze or lag on me yet. I don't game, and wouldn't suggest gaming on such a small device, but it works well for video, browsing reddit etc. Altogether, a great phone, and I hope Unihertz keeps up the good work. I'll definitely be looking for their latest model the next time I am looking to upgrade. No phone is perfect, but this one comes pretty close.

Let me start off by saying that this is one heck of a phone. If you want to turn heads, this will definitely do it. First, I'll start off with a couple of odd things that kinda bugged me. 1.) When the brightness is turned all the way down, I noticed that the display flickered slightly, however if you bump up the brightness, there's no issue. 2.) Clicking on the Google Play Music widget from the homescreen would crash the app when launched. The only fix was to just select the app icon itself. 3.) The LCD display that was used is pretty terrible and tires out my eyes, however it was probably necessary to help keep the device power efficient. 4.) The notifications are very spotty. When you use any app other than the stock apps for texting, alarm clock, the ring video doorbell app or any other app that you'd expect to stay in your notification tray, they disappear. When text messages come through with aftermarket apps, the notification will be gone once you turn the screen on and off once. The alarm clock apps won't alert you when an alarm is set to go off. Ring video doorbell app won't notify you at all. Temp monitor app will show temperature of the phone in the notification area which is supposed to stay there, but if you turn the screen off and turn it back on, it disappears. So annoying!!! 5.) It was such a pain to get Page Plus which runs off the Verizon network to work, but it works! I explain everything below: I had a heck of a time trying to get data working on Page Plus. Although calls, MMS and texts worked right away, data wasn't going through. I tried putting a pre-activated Verizon sim in it and everything including data was working. So what I did was call up Page Plus support and I gave them the IMEI number from a certified Verizon smartphone from a family member (since they absolutely will not activate a phone like this or even a prepaid Verizon phone) and I popped in a clean Page Plus sim that I had purchased previously. I popped the new sim into the Atom and it still didn't work, that is until they gave me the fix. What you need to do is go to settings - network & internet - mobile network settings - access point names - select "LTE - Verizon Internet" - under "APN", change "VERIZONINTERNET" to "tracfone.vzwentp" without the quotes. Right after I did that, it worked perfectly. Now the pros: 1.) Depending on what I'm doing, I can get anywhere between 3.5-5+ hours of screen on time which is incredibly impressive. 2.) It does everything a regular smartphone does and it does it quite well. Thanks to the 4gb of ram, you can run apps in split screen quite smoothly. 3.) It charges surprisingly fast, even from a quick charger in a car. 4.) It's very sturdy, but also light compared to standard 5-6" phones. 5.) It has a headphone jack. 6.) It's extremely portable. Seriously, you could fit this thing anywhere! 7.) It's really, really cute and definitely a conversation starter. 8.) In the "Ampere" battery app, it tells me that the battery is actually a 2020mAh instead of 2000mAh. 9.) IT WORKS ON VERIZON!!!!! Slight downsides: 1.) The camera. It's passable, but definitely not the best. Images generally come out pretty soft unless you have a steady hand and are in a well lit area. At least they used a 16mp sensor. 2.) I would've loved it if they were able to get some SD card support, but the 64gb of internal storage is a whole lot better than 8 or 16gb any day of the week. 3.) The only way to type is to swype type. It's rough trying to peck away at the keys, especially if you have bigger hands. 4.) It gets a little warm. My unit heats up to around 52c when I'm on video chat which is a little concerning, but I guess it's kind of understandable considering the size of this phone. 5.) The display. It's not the best, especially in quality but it's passable. If you select Miravision in the display settings and choose the vivid option, the colors look a bit more saturated. 6.) The price. At $260, it's a little on the steep side considering it's kind of a niche product, but for what you get, it's completely justified if you know what you're looking for in a device. Despite all of the little annoyances and general downsides that I've discovered, it's still a great little phone. I tried going back to my larger 6" phone that has an awesome display, expandable storage, a better camera, longer battery life, etc., and after about 20 minutes, I found myself reaching for my Atom. 45 minutes later, I re-inserted the sim card. Any smartphone that would make me want to switch from my main phone that adds so much convenience to my life, is at least worth looking into. Thanks for building such an awesome phone Unihertz! I can't wait for the next iteration!!!!

Ive had this phone for 5 months now and have no plans of going back to a bigger phone. This does fit in your watch pocket in your pants! And surprisingly the rope it comes with is very handy. I was driving and the phone slipped inbetween the seats. I thought I would have to pull over and dig, but when I reached down, the string was sticking out and out came my phone! I get asked about it all the time. Is that a phone? I thought it was a gps or ipod... Nope, Its my phone, see I got spotify, Audible, facebook, instagram, (edit) Snap Chat now works. Can you type on it? Yea, but it takes getting use too. I often just use voice to text if I have a lot to write. USB-c is the bomb. Finger print reader and face recognition are so so, but one or the other is usually working. When I was looking for my next phone, I wanted to spend less time on it. But I still probably spend to much time scrolling... So the screen is small, but it works for even watching short videos. And something I didn't initially perceive, that its too small for my parents to read. They quit looking over my shoulder because they can't even see what on it. :)- Ive tossed it in full beers a few times, and even ran it over without a scratch. Unfortuntly, if you hit the screen correctly (like I just did two hours ago by running it over with the side by side 4x4 while the glass was facing down on rocks) You can break it. But I don't see any phone screen making it through every impact. So here I am buying my second one. This is the coolest phone I have ever had.

I only took off a star because the camera could be better. It tends to blur a bit when the lighting is compromised. Texting is much easier than you would imagine, but still requires patients. It is perfect if you are trying to discourage yourself from being addicted to social media all day. The selling points for me are durability and small size. I keep my wallet in my front pocket, so a small phone is ideal for me. And I've accidentally slammed this phone down hard on the concrete ground. Didn't leave a mark! In fact, I actually tried to scratch up the screen with my pocket knife and couldn't do it. I believe that most phones nowadays are designed for women and their purses. They are big and brittle and look like jewelry. I wanted to go the other way! It's my opinion that this is the perfect phone for a dude. It is so undetectable in my pocket that I don't even feel it with my wallet! Update 10 months later: If you are the type that likes to use the Aux input in your car to play music from your phone, forget this phone. It stops your song every second, and no amount of continuingly pressing Play will help you. Unihertz actually put out an update that fixed this, then put out another update that screwed it up again two months later. So even if this fix it again, consider it a temporary fix. Also, the camera is so bad that I hardly ever took pictures of my little kids. I admit I was too in denial and found myself avoiding the camera all together. Subjects seem much further away than they are and the photo appears very very dark. I guess I always took for granted having a decent camera in the past. Also, some rubber is starting to peel, though I don't understand why.

***Update, I really loved this phone but it died after only using it for about a year. The charging port just stopped charging, It was $250 so that is pretty expensive for a phone that only lasts a year, so I would not recommend buying it, wish there was some way to get it repaired! I contacted the company and got the following response, however the cost to send the phone to Hong Kong by registered airmail as they suggest is astronomical, it is also not allowed by customs to send anything with lithium batteries and of course after a year I no longer have the original box. When I tried to ask Unihertz further questions about how to get a repair I got a robot response and no useful information so now the phone is a $250 brick. Hello, Thank you for the information. Now you could follow the steps to return the phone: 1.Please wipe off all your personal data before you send back the phone. (e.g. make a factory reset). And don’t forget to remove your sim card. 2.Please pack your phone with its original package and writes “Unihertz Return” on the box. 3.Return the package to below address via registered airmail which has a tracking number. The declared value of the phone is 30USD. And you don’t have to buy any insurance for package. Receiver: Luck&YanChen Hou Company: Hong Kong Shanghai Maitrox Services Limited Address: U2, UG/F, Block B, Tung Chun Industrial Building, 11-13 Tai Yuen Street, Kwai Chung, NT,Hong Kong Zip Code: 999077 Phone: 852-39960709、53162046 After you send it, please send us the shipping receipt, the tracking number and two pictures to show the package. We will inform you once we get the return package. Thanks. (Please keep your charger and cable since we only repair the phone for you. ) Regards, to me a mobile phone means it should be truly mobile, I shouldn't have to carry a bag or anything else to hold the phone, so I bought this phone because it really does fit in my pocket unlike my old phone which was a not too bug Samsung A6 but was still always squeezing out of my pocket somehow and ending up on the ground. So I've only had this phone for 2 days and so far it is pretty good. Fits well in the pocket, battery life is decent not great, for 2/3 of a day of little use except a taking a few photos it is down to 56% and the USB cord for charging is not standard so I only have the one which is worrying if it gets misplaced. Display is ok but a little pale compared to my old phone. One glitch so far is that it won't keep my wallpaper after going to sleep it reverts to a standard wallpaper not the one I chose, and does it everytime which is annoying. Tried to read a book on the kindle app and can barely do it with picking the largest possible font size. Sound and speed seem to be decent, the keyboard and touchscreen is a little hard to use because just a tad too small, seems like they could keep the device size the same and still expand the screen to the edges and it would be perfect. I like the loop for a lanyard because I already liked to wear my bigger phone around my neck on a string. Wish there was a wristband accessory because its could just work as a watch. Disabled the zello and reprogrammed that button to open the camera. I dont really get zello because how can you communicate with people who don't have zello? I don't know anyone that uses zello, so no one to call. So far its an ok phone, I'm just using it with wireless so far as I dont use cellular networks in this country because they are too expensive in the USA.

I wanted a cool toy! I'm 55 and love this stuff! This phone works perfectly. It does everything. It's a mid range phone, that's tiny. Real tiny. I have to wear cheaters to run it, except calls. You can't text for crap. You have to talk text. Even a stylist is too big! It's fun. It breaks the ice in conversations. Everyone is amazed. Don't buy it for the camera. Or anything that you need a larger screen. It's rugged, it's a chunk. It's bullet proof. Calls are amazing! Remember to turn the volume down. I bought a watch for music at the gym. Pain in the butt to load. This I throw in my shorts pocket and sweat and have no worries because it's waterproof. And you don't need a phone protector. It's a beast just the way it is. It comes with a screen protector. Which is fine. But it's gorilla glass. And the screen protector was unnecessary. I thought when I bought it, I'd check it out and return it. But I'm keeping it. It does everything you would expect! Scored a 90,000 on antu benchmark. So it's fast enough. When I need my larger phone, I just slide out my prepay SIM from Verizon and it starts right up. Also, bought because I ride motorcycles, and rain used to be a concern, no more! And talk quality is perfect. I bought this from Amazon and I am an average Joe customer. Have some fun! Buy one.

I really enjoy this phone as it can do everything that a regular size phone can. The biggest benefit to me is it's small size and it's rugged durability. At times it can be hard to text or send an email but in portrait view it's very doable. If I find myself writing a long email on my phone I'll simply hit the microphone button for speech to text recognition. I've had absolutely no issues with this phone and it is the best phone I have ever owned. It is a welcomed experience to no longer have a large brick of a cell phone in my pocket when I go about my day. The camera is excellent for my standards (16 megapixels), the battery easily lasts all day, and the software is extremely quick and responsive. Also, unlike many other phones there are hardly any factory installed apps on the phone that you can't delete. The amount of memory on this phone is more than adequate. I use this phone as a GPS like anyone else would with their smartphone and the GPS is outstanding as well. YouTube Works excellent and the low screen resolution is not a big deal because the screen is so small that it still is Crystal clear despite the low resolution. I use this as my primary phone day in and day out, and when comparing it to my other large phones in the past, I can't think of one single thing I can no longer do by going to this smaller phone. For what it's worth, I wrote this review on my unihertz Atom phone. I will probably never go back to a normal size phone again :-)