UnihertzAtom - 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 AvoidanceFor 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 GoogleLike 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 BatteryThe 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 RepairLastly, 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 AvailabilityAs 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 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 :-)

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!!!!