Left my iPhone behind and couldn’t be happier! Here’s my experience so far:
Network:
The biggest hurdle for me so far. Coming from Verizon, & was told device was not supported. I’m NOT tech-savvy and did not have the patience to fiddle with APN, so I joined US Mobile & followed directions to implement their suggestion for most compatible carrier & activated AT&T via ESIM. Interestingly, calls/texts came through great, but mobile data didn’t work. Was told that phone does not support eSIM or ATT/Verizon. Was mailed a physical sim for T-Mobile, now that has arrived and is working great. US Mobile customer service is amazing. This process took me about a week.
Sideloading:
Have side loaded Spotify, Via, Magic Earth, openbubbles and ClassPass all from aurora store. Super easy. Aurora crashes if I use it for a long period but now that my initial set up is done I never use it. The apps work well. I live in a major US metropolitan city & needed some additional “smart” functionality to my device to make it fully workable for me and have no regrets. Nothing from the internet is super fun to look at on the eink screen which is what I love! I simply do not scroll, online shop, check meaningless things all the time, because it is tedious as hell. I really appreciate the added frustration that the phone adds to using smart features, it has curbed my usage a lot even while having a browser (for checking transit times, uber, email for tickets, etc).
Launcher:
I have been using the inkOS launcher that gezimos created and LOVE it. Beautiful & completely perfects the device for me. Thank you @gezimos !
Chess:
My chess game app is a little buggy! Sometimes it won’t let me make plays I think I should be able to make, and it has a funny bug with the rook on the computer team switches places with the king sometimes.
Battery:
Is just okay. I have sideloaded apps to make it workable as a smartphone replacement for me so it’s worth the trade off. I have to charge every 36 hours.
Feature wishlist:
- custom / minimal lockscreen — though what I will say with this is that MANY people ask about my phone and what it’s called. It has actually been quite useful to give these curious onlookers a visual. Smart marketing Mudita! But I would love the option to have it blank / just with a clock.
- quit app function / shortcut
- Background data management — not sure if this exists, but I’d like to see which apps I need to “force quit” to save battery life.
Overall, I’m a happy customer; my life already feels freer and more simple with the Kompakt. I actually appreciated the opportunity to learn about developer settings, sideloading, ADB etc & this forum was an amazing place to find support. It did require a couple weeks of research, customizing, troubleshooting, and experimenting to get the setup right for me, but I’m happy to have done it. I’ve also really enjoyed the conversations this phone has started & think products like the Kompakt & LP might be able to start a meaningful ripple effect. Really excited to have gotten in on this at the start and looking forward to growing with Mudita and the community!
