Mudita Pure in the UK - near-perfect operation

Mudita Products
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Hi, just a quick note that hopefully will help existing or prospective UK Mudita Pure users (and may be useful to European or other users too).

I have just bought a second-hand pebble-grey pure from a well-known auction site. It was a reasonable deal as it came with the cork case and a spare battery. Maybe I should have bought a charcoal-black one direct from Mudita so I’d have all the support etc., but I had my heart set on the pebble grey.

My experience so far of network-coverage and call sound-quality is that it is perfect - just as good as an Android smartphone - when using the “giffgaff” and “ASDA” networks. giffgaff is an MVNO running on top of O2, and ASDA is an MVNO that uses Vodafone’s infrastructure. Sending and receiving texts also works perfectly on both networks. I have only had the phone a few days, but have had two very long calls on the phone, and they did not drop.

Sound-quality is great on both “normal” mode and using the phone’s built-in loudspeaker. I was able to use the phone on loudspeaker while driving, and could still hear the other party over the road-noise.

I am autistic, so due to language-processing issues, I wouldn’t be able to use this phone if the call-quality was anything less than flawless.

Other experiences:

The phone updated from MuditaOS 1.5 to 1.6 with no drama on a borrowed Windows computer, and updated from 1.6 to 1.7 today on my Linux Mint computer with one minor issue (the phone crashed, and I had to repeat the update).

Battery life seems quite reasonable. If the drain is linear, I think I’ll get a week from it.

The main problem with the phone is that it doesn’t work with my modern-vehicle’s Bluetooth hands-free system. The phone can be seen by, and exchange a numerical pass-key with the “Sync 2” infotainment systems found in the 2016 Ford Focus RS and Ford Mustang GT (EU/UK spec), however connection never completes. The car simply shows the “connecting to Mudita Pure…” message endlessly, so the phone is not actually usable on the car’s Bluetooth hands-free system.

Another drawback is the lack of T9, but having had the Motorola M3788 as my first phone, I’m proficient at triple-click texting. On the subject of texting, using Mudita Center preserves my sanity. It’s also brilliant at importing and editing contacts.

The phone feels great in the hand, but its build-quality isn’t quite as good as I’d hoped. The haptic feedback from the buttons is a little inconsistent. Often the buttons close to the “1” are softer with a less-defined “click” than the ones closer to the “3” or “#”. Additionally, the front is quite easy to loosen. On the subject of buttons, I can see the right-hand action-button wearing-out very quickly as it gets used for a disproportionate amount of phone actions, when compared to the left-hand button or the centre of the arrow-keys.

On the plus side, the torch is excellent and the alarm (and snooze) worked perfectly when I tried it this morning.

Over-all an excellent phone and perfectly-usable as a daily (only) phone.

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I think I should also add that both my giffgaff and ASDA SIM cards are 5g-capable, pay-as-you-go cards. I seem to remember something about only getting 5g on the more-expensive add-on bundles, but given that this is a billing issue rather than one of SIM cards, this suggests that the Pure works with at least some 5g SIM-cards.

I’m very glad that the low-SAR antenna works perfectly in the UK.

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@forest_cat Glad to hear you can enjoy the Mudita Pure in the UK :slight_smile:

I experienced an issue too when updating to v1.7.0. Mine showed “eMMC init error: -1” upon reboot which happened after the successful update. It was necessary to temporarily remove the battery. Did you get this message too?

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@forest_cat Bluetooth connection can work. It is possible to establish Bluetooth connection to a VW Golf Sportsvan 2017. I could play at least music.

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No, I didn’t. The phone rebooted instead of going into “Mudita Recovery”, and Mudita Center reported that the phone had crashed. There were no special codes or other error messages, either in Mudita Center or on the phone. When I repeated the update attempt (I did this immediately), the update proceeded as expected, and upon rebooting the phone I could see it had been successful.

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This is very good to know. I may try again with Sync 2. It gives me two options - one where you search for the car with the Phone, and another option where you can search for the phone with the car. I seem to remember a very old Nokia only working if the car made the pairing-request, rather than the usual route of the phone attempting to connect to the car. It may be that the Pure expects or works better with one of these options.

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Another thing I could add about my experience with the Pure, is that although it provides no option for requesting a delivery-report, people using O2 or some (any?) of its MVNOs (such as giffgaff or Tesco) can prefix an SMS with the characters “*0#” (with no quotes), and the network will send a delivery-report back via SMS.

Regarding MMS, I received two of them yesterday and the Pure does not handle them well on giffgaff. I get a regular SMS from 820202 with a bunch of unreadable characters. I’m not sure how Asda/Vodafone handle this. I am thinking of trying a T-Mobile MVNO, as I understand users receive a regular SMS with a web link where the user can view the message on a computer web browser.

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@forest_cat Thank you for taking the time to share your experience with the Mudita Pure. We’re thrilled to hear that you’re enjoying Mudita Pure’s call sound-quality, network-coverage, and battery life. We’re also glad to know that the phone’s updates were trouble-free and that Mudita Center is making texting and contact management easy for you.
Regarding the Bluetooth connectivity issue, As you know we’re always working to improve our product, and we’ll take note of this feedback as we continue to develop the Mudita Pure.
Thanks again for your feedback and we hope that the Mudita Pure continues to serve you well as your daily driver :slight_smile:
As we release updates, we’d love to hear back about your experience.

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I don’t normally like to resurrect old threads, but just continuing from my experiences, I can confirm that the Pure works flawlessly (apart from phonebook download, which doesn’t work at all) with the bluetooth system fitted to Jaguar cars circa 2008. I’m not sure when this particular system was introduced or superceded.

I also get good coverage and sound-quality with ASDA mobile (MVNO running on Vodafone’s infrastructure), although I have not had experience of anyone attempting to send an MMS to me yet. Curiously, on a smartphone, coverage is better than giffgaff (MVNO running on O2), yet on the Pure, coverage is worse than giffgaff. Sound quality is adequate, but not as good as giffgaff on the Pure. I also had the Pure crash or freeze then reset when I attempted to make a call during low-signal conditions. So far I think UK users can use any available network, but would so-far recommend O2 or one of its MVNOs.

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@forest_cat Thank you so much for taking the time & sharing your experience with us. It’s very helpful in terms long-term usability for users of Mudita Pure.

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