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.

Overall, I gave this phone a 5 star review, taking everything into consideration. If I could give it a 4.5 star rating, I would. here's why. Now, let me first start off with the fact that I have been using this phone as my ONLY phone for the past month, approximately. I only saw reviews of people using it as a secondary phone when I bought it for myself, which is part of why I'm leaving this review and why I'm going to go so in depth. Straight out of the package, it feels extremely nice and good quality. It just feels good, you know? It didn't feel cheap, it was very well packaged, and overall, I really enjoyed the buying and unboxing experience. To get it set up took a little learning curve, mainly just because i had never used a sim tray before, and I will shamefully admit that I had to look up an instructional video as to how to use it. After that, the only trouble I ran into was that for some reason, multimedia messages would not send. I later discovered that it was because I had yet to turn my data on. (I'm not dumb, usually, I swear). Using this phone, the internet loads quickly, I haven't had anything crash on me whatsoever. Texting works fine, calling works great, camera works great, fingerprint scanner is honestly amazing (didn't have one on my old phone, never going back). I can run facebook, instagram, google, anything i could do on my old phone (a samsung galaxy J3v6), I can do on this phone. Obviously, the screen is tiny, so certain things are hard to read, but that is to be expected. I can easily slip this into my pocket and take it on the go, and I love the small size. It was one of the main selling points for me. Everything works amazingly ... except the touch screen can be a bit irritating at times. In general, it works pretty well. Occasionally, it just takes a few tries to click something. But it is very occasional. As for the battery life, for a small phone, it does amazing. If you turn battery saver on, it lasts just as long as my old phone did, if not longer. The screen is a bit pixelated, which makes it not great for Netflix or YouTube, but honestly, it really doesn't bother me. Watch it on your computer or tablet, or even screen share with your TV. People were talking about how difficult typing is. Using the swipe to type, it's been perfectly fine for me. quick and easy. Overall, this phone is amazing for what I wanted it to be. I knew I spent so much time wasted on scrolling through Facebook feeds, watching YouTube, etc, and I wanted to cut down on that. And it works. I can still access it all, whenever I want, I can still just text people, but I find myself calling my family more, checking facebook less, and certainly watching youtube less. It is extremely durable, which is great for my clumsy self, keeps me more connected with the people I love, while also aiding me in spending my time on more valuable things than mindless scrolling. I will continue using this as my sole phone and if anything on this review changes, i will be sure to update my review. I hope this helped someone out. TL;DR: Great phone for people who want to have access to everything, but still try to cut down on screen time. Great for clumsy people and outdoorsy people alike. Good battery life, especially with battery saver on. Everything works (internet, social media, basic games, all that jazz), sim transfer works well. Touch screen can be a little touch and go, but great for the most part. Fingerprint reader works great! Typing really isn't as difficult as everyone says once you adjust. (pro-tip, use swipe to type)

I love this phone. It's tiny. Does almost everything any other smartphone will do, except it fits in my pocket. Surprisingly, I've never lost it. I'm on Verizon, and I think that's caused a couple issues, the worst being sms/mms messaging. If on wifi, MMS messages won't receive or transmit. Doesn't matter which sim slot I use. If I put the sim card in the incorrect sim slot, service goes up to 4gLTE which is awesome, but then texting of any kind doesn't work at all. The most aggravating issue I've had with this phone is that on occasion a text message won't come through at all. Sometimes it's a message out of the middle of a conversation, and sometimes it's a message that is sent alone. There's no rhyme or reason for when messages fail to come through, but they NEVER get through. Several times since purchasing this phone I've switched to a samsung smartphone, when space allowed, and the problem never happened with any other phone, still using the same SIM. Customer service & most of the unihertz forum boards are all questions and no answers. The screen protector that comes with the phone is junk, but you don't need it anyway. Only physical issue I've ever had is the power button came off about 3 months ago, and I couldn't get a hold of anyone to order a replacement. Fortunately a friend had the exact same phone (which will no longer take a charge at all and is therefore a $300 paperweight) and I was able to rob the button off of his phone. I like how small it is. If you NEED to do any of the smartphone things on it, you can. But you don't want to... and that was the whole point for me. Carrying this phone for the last 10 months has really helped me to use my phone less, and notice how everyone else is always sucked into their phones. I'd recommend it, but it's not the latest or greatest, and there will be issues if you're on Verizon.

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.

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 :-)

***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.

This is my second Atom, the first just quit working after a year. It is a little marvel, ideal for when you need a little phone, that is not intrusive or bulky. I work in a hospital, and the size is great to wear with medical scrubs and other uniforms. The battery life is also great, and with Android 9 running, this is an awesome second phone. The small screen makes it very hard to type, and hit the hyperlinks with ease, but the voice to type feature really helps with the typing while texting or dialing. Reception is great, depending on the service provider, but you can also use Wi-Fi phone services like Google Voice and such. This is the perfect phone for jogging and working outside, not bulky enough to be uncomfortable, yet fully functional. Does not have an SD card slot, but it has enough internal memory to be able to handle all tasks. The dual SIM card is a plus for those whom need them, giving it more options and versatility. For what I need, this is perfect. Addendum: the second Atom died, just like the first one, but sooner. It only lasted 6 months! Very disappointing!