Hey everyone! Just got my Kompakt, and I wanted to share some quick thoughts and impressions now that I’ve had some hands-on time.
Build & Design
In-hand feel: Much nicer than the Minimal Phone. It’s heavier than I expected, but it feels solid and well-built.
Finish: The rubberized texture on both the phone and the included case feels great. The matte screen is perfect—absolutely love it.
Offline+ Switch: One of the standout features for me. Being able to cut off wireless radios, mic, and camera with a physical toggle is a huge win for privacy.
Annoyances
Charging LED: The bright green LED above the display when the phone is plugged in is very distracting, and it looks flickery to my eyes. I really wish there was an option to disable it. It should have been diffused a lot better.
Mudita, if you’re reading this—please let us turn it off!
Frontlight: While the flashlight lets you choose between cool and warm color temp, the E Ink frontlight only uses cool light. A warm frontlight option would be much easier on the eyes, especially at night. Less blue light too!
Performance & UI
Keyboard: Out of the box, it feels sluggish, but sideloading FUTO Keyboard immediately fixed that.
Screen refresh rate: It’s slower than other E Ink devices I’ve used (e.g. Bigme HiBreak Pro, Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 4). That’s expected to a degree, but still worth noting.
Missing features & requests:
E Ink display controls (contrast, speed, mode, etc.)
Manual refresh—this is standard on most E Ink devices. Even a simple gesture (like pull-down to refresh) or a long press on one of the nav buttons would help.
Notification tray—there’s no centralized way to view missed calls, messages, or system alerts. A simple dropdown or summary page would go a long way.
E Ink-optimized podcast app—similar to what the Light Phone II offers. A lightweight, simple interface to follow and play podcasts would be perfect.
Auto-forwarding of SMS links/photos to email—handy for offloading media without cloud syncing.
SMS messaging via Mudita Center or web portal—wireless desktop access would improve usability a lot.
This is without a doubt a privacy-first, anti-big-tech phone. I love that it’s fully de-Googled. The E Ink screen is very nice on the eyes. It just needs some software polishing to reach its full potential.
@jordan
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your first impressions & attaching pix- this visual can help a lot of people. I feel like a broken record when I keep saying that we really appreciate all the feedback- but it’s so true. It’s incredibly valuable to hear how Mudita Kompakt is performing out in the real world, especially from someone who’s clearly been following the journey for a while.
We really appreciate your openness and honest feedback (both the positives and the constructive points). I make sure to pass on every comment to our team, and your insights help us continue refining the experience as we move forward.
If you have any additional thoughts or run into anything you’d like support with, please don’t hesitate to post more or reach out directly. We’re excited to have you as part of the Mudita community and can’t wait to hear how your experience evolves over time!
A personal thought about the lack of warm backlighting. My first reaction was that I didn’t like this, but then I thought of how when I had a Boox I would often use the warm backlighting too often, and when I had a Light Phone II, I simply couldn’t use the backlighting unless I was out working late and really had to, but for the most part I left it off.
So personally I love that there is no warm backlight, it keeps me from using the backlight unless I really have to, when I’m out and about, and when I’m at home, well I’ll have to lean over get some reflection just as if it were a book.
@urszula Of course!! I am happy to hear you guys are listening and will be exciting to see what future updates bring! Definitely will post about any further things that come to mind
@nownotlater I mainly just use it with the front light off but having a warm setting for occasional use at night would be nice to lower blue light exposure. I mean if the phone has warm leds built in already…
I hear you, I was just pointing out I rather be forced not to be able to use a backlight at all, while the blue backlight is good for those cases where I might be yelled at while at work for not being able to see my phone in the dark haha.
But that’s just me, I get insomnia extremely easily, I have been using screen protectors from lowbluelights.com for years that block 100% blue light, but they aren’t making them anymore. I do believe there is a big difference between looking at reflections of light, vs looking Directly into light; a screen is like shining a lamp directly into your face, it’s a lot.
Using a Boox with the amber setting wasn’t as bad as a normal screen of course, but it wasn’t completely blue free either, it did affect my sleep. While I have a lamp that is, it has less blue light than a candle, but at the same time when a lamp doesn’t contain any blue light, it’s rather hard on the eyes, it’s uncomfortable light.
+1 on the e-ink controls. Would LOVE to see some level of control over screen quality, manual refresh, and contrast, even if it’s just some options a few levels deep in the System Settings.
Build & Design
Annoyances
Performance & UI
