Today I would like to make a comparison between the Mudita Pure and the Punkt MP02.
As you know from my posts, I am really a Mudita fan and I have used the Mudita consistently for almost a year. It was a constant up and down. There were phases, at the very beginning, when the text messages didn’t come in or were incomplete, the signal was constantly collapsing, and then the Mudita was somewhat usable in everyday life. This means that I had a rather poor signal at home, 1-2 bars or sometimes nothing, but I was able to cope with this because I use my desk phone at home. Outside, on the other hand, I had really good reception after a few updates to the operating system, 3-4 bars.
The system would hang up from time to time, so only removing the battery helped, but I could work with it.
Then it happened more and more often that I had no signal when I really needed the phone. It then took another restart and 3-5 minutes until I had reception again.
Then I had the following error more and more often:
When I cycled from home to work, arrived there and texted my wife, she didn’t receive it. She got worried and called me at work. During the break, I saw that the Pure had not sent the text message. Only a restart solved the problem. This happened every time I drove from one part of town to the next. The Pure did not find a signal after the “change of location”.
Then two months ago we had a bad storm and flood water entered our house. I tried to call the fire brigade, the caretaker and my wife but I just couldn’t get a signal in the house. Then the Pure showed 2 bars and the moment I wanted to make another call, I suddenly had 0 bars again. I had to use my smartphone, which worked fine.
I was so annoyed that a few days later I ordered the Punkt MP02.
It wasn’t easy for me to decide, because I really love the Mudita Pure. I love the design, how it feels in my hand, how the buttons react, the e-ink display, the meditation timer, the ringtones, just everything. But it’s not reliable now and then.
I have now used the Punkt MP02 for two months straight. First of all, I have to say that it hasn’t let me down once. All messages arrive, phone calls work without problems, whether 2G or 4G calls. The voice quality is excellent, just like the Pure.
Of course, I had to get used to the operation, but that went quite quickly.
It also has a nice design, is a bit smaller than the Pure, but still feels good in the hand.
The ringtones are great, but not like the Pure. The only thing is that it has a “ring ring” tone, which many people wanted for the Pure so that they could hear it better when it rang in noisier environments.
As with the Pure, I can create templates for SMS messages and now one of the advantages I really miss with the Pure is that I can assign the buttons 1-9. It doesn’t matter if I want to speed-dial a call to my wife on 2, or a message to my best friend on 3 or a new note on 4. No problem at all and I hardly want to live without this function 
The signal quality is excellent (of course Punkt doesn’t advertise a low SAR value for it either).
In the house, I have 100% reception with 2G. With 4G, it’s between 75 and 95 % reception. As I said, there are no problems anywhere. It doesn’t matter whether I’m at home, at work, in the city or on holiday in the mountains. So far, it has been absolutely reliable everywhere.
Why did I put the SIM card back into my Pure yesterday anyway?
I can’t explain it rationally. The MP02 is reliable, I hardly notice it in my pocket, as with the Pure, it can happen that I forget it at home, which would never have happened with my smartphone, it slows me down and doesn’t distract me.
But it’s not the Mudita Pure. I can’t explain it, when I take the Pure in my hand, something happens to me. It calms me down inside and makes me think of my new lifestyle and routines. Meditating, writing down my thoughts in a diary, going through life more mindfully, relaxing more, the Pure stands for all that for me. And I missed the meditation timer. The MP02 also has a timer, but it’s just a timer. There is only an annoying sound and not such a nice gong that gently brings you out of meditation and back into the here and now. And I missed the e-ink screen. It’s good for the eyes. And even if it sounds crazy, the somewhat slower set-up of the e-ink screen reminds me to slow down and not do everything in a rush.
So yesterday I took the Pure out of the drawer again, inserted the SIM card, switched it on and first carried out the latest update.
I felt “at home” again. There I was holding “my Pure” in my hands again
There were two bars of reception instead of 100% on the MP02. But I didn’t care as long as I could make phone calls and write text messages with these two bars.
Yesterday nothing much happened, because I spent the time with my wife and put the Pure on the dresser in the hallway.
Then this morning I received a text message to which I wanted to reply and at that very moment the two bars of signal disappeared and I was left without reception again. Three minutes later it worked again, but unfortunately it shows me again how unreliable the Pure still is, even after the latest update. So I put the SIM card back into the MP02 for on the road.
I will test the Pure again extensively in the next few days, but today I somehow lacked the nerve to do so.
I think it’s such a shame and sad. I really love the Pure, but I just can’t use it properly like this.
I can already see that I’m going to use it as a meditation timer costing over 300 euros…
I wish nothing more for the Pure to keep its signal stable, even if it’s only two bars.
My conclusion:
The Pure is a beautiful minimalist phone that does a lot of things right and fits my lifestyle perfectly. But it still doesn’t work reliably.
I so wish it had stable reception, but after a year I’m afraid that will never happen. It’s not for nothing that Mudita is working on a successor and no longer sells the Pure in the shop.
What I find unfortunate is that some of the feedback that came in a year ago has not been accepted or implemented. For example, the availability of a replacement battery.
Why advertise a replaceable battery if you can only use it to restart the phone after a crash?
At Faiphone in the Netherlands, for example, I can order batteries for my smartphone without any problems, as it should be with a replaceable battery.
I have a lot of sympathy for the guys and gals at Mudita. This is the first phone you guys have designed and built, and there is a lot to learn on the way to a working and finished product.
But the fact that the buyers are still beta testers is a real shame.
Testing and sending the logs and reporting in the forum was also fun for some time, because you were part of the journey and I know that from the OpenSource scene. But at some point you just want to be able to use the phone.
The Punkt doesn’t have a replaceable battery, but that doesn’t seem to be a disadvantage because, as I said, you still can’t buy a battery from Mudita’s shop.
For me personally, it doesn’t feel that great in the hand (the Mudita has the perfect shape and size for me), but it still has a nice design and it has the big advantage that it works absolutely reliably. It also has the option of speed dialling keys. And it has T9, which makes typing messages really great.
Of course, the MP02 is the second generation, and Punkt has had time to learn, but I have never read of any problems with reception on the MP01. Signal strength is the most important thing for a mobile phone.
A low SAR value is very important to me, because my health is also important to me. But a compromise must be possible. After all, what good is the lowest SAR value if I can’t use the phone for what it was made for?
So, barring another miracle, I’ll be using the MP02 as my daily mobile mini-malist phone and the Pure probably as a meditation timer, which I think is a shame.
And even though I’ve never spent as much money on phones as I have in the past year, I just wish for a new edition of the Pure, as is, of design but fully functional. I don’t need the music player, I use an MP3 player anyway, but get the important functions working. Add T9 and the ability to speed dial the keys and I and many others here are happy.
Maybe next generation you’ll do a discount for people who already own the first Pure and even take it back for recycling.
Please understand this as constructive criticism. As I said, you know I’m a fan of yours. I have the alarm clock and love it, as well as the Pause cards.
Just get the Pure up and running or give current owners the opportunity to get it a little cheaper with a second generation Pure when it is released.
I see a lot of people here on the forum who love the Pure just as much and just want it to work. People who are here to talk about a lifestyle that moves away from the constant accessibility and control of the digital world.
People who want to experience the world more mindfully again and shift down a gear to slow down.
Mudita, with what you are doing, you are making the world a little bit better. Please keep at it and have the necessary stamina to make Pure even better as a minimalist phone.
Thank you for reading these lines