Minimal Phone smartphone with a physical QWERTY keyboard and E-Ink screen went on sale

An unusual Minimal Phone smartphone was on sale, which instead of a large color display is equipped with a 4.3-inch black and white display on electronic ink and the QWERTY physical keyboard, which provides tactile feedback when typing. Last year, the developer of the smartphone, the Minimal startup, raised more than $ 600,000 through the crowdfunding campaign for Indiegogo, and from today the company began to send minimal Phone to customers.

Image source: minimal

This may seem strange, but for the future owners of Minimal Phone, his attractiveness is that he does less than other smartphones, and not more. The E-Ink display provides convenience for reading textual information and studying another static content. This is a screen with minimal energy consumption, perfectly visible under direct sunlight. But the low frequency of the screen update makes it unsuitable for watching videos, games or other active actions.

The smartphone is based on the MediaTek Helio G99 chipset with two ARM Cortex-A75 nuclei, six Cortex-A55 nuclei and Mali-G57 MP2 graphics. The device has the memory of the LPDDR4XRAM standard 6 or 8 GB and a 128 or 256 GB accumulator. A 3000 mAh battery is enough, according to the manufacturer, for several days of battery life. The phone supports the qi standard wireless charging with a capacity of 15 watts.

Minimal Phone display is an E-Ink touch with a diagonal of 4.3 inches with a resolution of 600 × 800 pixels, a ratio of sides 4: 3 and a density of 230 pixels per inch. The screen is equipped with a disabled backlight, which is required only in low light conditions, since in good light the display is perfectly read due to the reflected light.

On the right face of the phone are the buttons of the increase and decrease the volume, as well as the E-Ink screen renewal button. On the left edge – a power button with a built -in scanner of fingerprints.

The QWERTY keyboard with 35 keys is located at the bottom of the device, the key stroke is 0.15 mm.

On the lower side of the smartphone is the USB Type-C port, a microphone, a speaker and an audio part of 3.5 mm, the phone also has a Microsd memory card. Minimal Phone received support for Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC and 4G LTE. Versions with 5G support are not provided.

The back is located a 16-megapixel camera with an LED flash. On models with a selfie camera (and there is a version without it), it is located rather unusual-in the lower left corner of the smartphone, so it can overlap with his hands during printing.

In the process of collecting funds, the developers improved the design of a smartphone based on community reviews and made several changes. One of the most important was the opportunity to purchase Minimal Phone without a front camera, which will be appreciated by users who are not fond of the shooting of selfies and appreciate their confidentiality.

Minimal Phone operates under the operating system based on Android 14. All Google applications and services are available, including Google Play. The functionality of third -party applications will be determined by the restrictions imposed by the screen on electronic ink.

Minimal Phone is supplied in three color options: Pebble (gray), ONYX (black) and Fusion (silver). The dimensions of the device are 142 × 78 × 8.6 mm.

The cost of the Minimal Phone is $ 399 in the version of 6 and 128 GB of memory, and the version with 8 and 256 GB will cost $ 100 more expensive. The order of the smartphone is still available through the crowdfunding company Indiegogo or on the Minimal website. The manufacturer promises to deliver the ordered devices by early March.