Hi everyone,
Thought I’d share my impressions so far with the MK. Previously I was using the Hibreak Pro as my daily driver and it’s a great device but the size is not suitable for me. I went looking for other smaller eink phones and apart from the MK nothing else is available really.
I decided my workflow will be, use the Hibreak pro as an ereader and for hosting banking and other apps I need and use the MK mostly as a phone with one messenger app, a browser and an e-reader while on the go.
Regarding the apps on the MK: the ereader is not worth investing more efforts into. It’s so basic and limited that getting it to be up to par with the rest would be too much effort. Leave it as it is and let users side load a proper one. Or better yet, add an open source one to the Mudita OS. There are plenty of options to choose from, no need to reinvent the wheel. The weather app is pretty good, the maps need navigation but this was already stated many times. Investing in the maps actually makes sense because most map apps aren’t optimized for e-ink, although this one also doesn’t feel much better either. The music player is also useless and no point in investing in it, users will most likely side-load something else.
The screen: the feature I’m most looking forward to is some kind of control of the screen contrast, DPI and quality. I’m sure this screen can produce much sharper text than what is currently available. I believe this should be the main priority, some users see this as the main feature of the phone. Otherwise a stripped down smartphone would do the same job. This and the battery life which has been solid.
My setup for using the MK as an ereader is to use KOreader in parallel on my other eink devices. Initially I tried the built in progress sync, but this didn’t really work well. I’m in the process of doing the syncing by using dropbox and storing all books and the progress in a shared directory and repeating the same setup on all devices.
KOreader has options which makes reading on the MK as it is more acceptable. I increased the contrast and the font width, the text is still fuzzy reminiscent of an old book. On the plus size, the screen is whiter than most other eink devices I know, it allows for using the MK without a front light 90% of the time. That said, the next updates should also add having a warm front light if possible.
Overall nice device with a lot of potential, the form factor and battery life are great. In my opinion focus future efforts on improving all other areas apart from the built in apps.
Great feed back I think people need to be patient and see how the device develops. If you look at the Light phone 2 for example and @Jose_Briones can attest to this when it came out it was bare bones, literally did nothing else besides call and text but he stuck with the phone and he literally used it for 5 years, and through that time they added so many new things, podcasts, music, notes, etc and the device grew into a great one
I like the idea of sticking with a phone and watching it grow and improve. I am CONFIDENT that Mudita will have the same success with the Kompakt but yes it is going to take time for it to get there
Some more thoughts after 30 days of daily use.
The good things:
The volume buttons are very satisfying to use, responsive and have a nice click to them. In KOreader they are automatically mapped as page turn buttons. Much better than the ones on the HiBreak Pro, often unresponsive.
Reading is decent despite the grainy screen, contrast and font size can be adjusted in KOreader.
Loving the camera, it’s probably not intentional but the photo quality resembles scanned film. I’m taking more photos than I was expecting.
I mentioned this earlier, but the screen is very usable without the frontlight. 99% of the time I don’t use the front light and even in low light conditions, it’s good enough.
The not so good:
It’s been mentioned a lot but the notifications. Seems like this was not thought through, by not having any notification on the lock screen or the LED, you end up using the phone more and wasting away the battery, than having this information available. I want to make sure I haven’t missed a phone call, so at least this should be available at a glance. I don’t want to pick up the phone to check if I left it in another room.
Again e-ink controls, please just add the HD mode and a contrast toggle. It would make like with the MK so much better for anyone wishing to read on it.
It’s been mentioned a lot: accidental unlock or emergency services dial. Super annoying.
I’ve sideloaded a single messaging app, but every now and again it stops running in the background. I’ve also noticed the audible alert for a message coming in 10min late for some reason.
No task manager and an easy way to manage if applications should stay in the background or not.
Other thoughts:
Would love to be able to use the MK for driving navigation somehow. I know the implications of running Android Auto but perhaps make it easier to install the google services spoofing application without rooting? I’m not sure how the navigation would work on a screen of this size even if you implement the turn by turn navigation for the maps.
Overall great device and with some more well focused dev work, it would be at the forefront of “dumphones”. For me sideloading, size, e-ink screen, battery life are killer features that no other device currently has. To be honest, if there was a version with a fuller Android (notifications, android auto, google maps and wallet), I’d probably go with this one. I mean the eink screen is already just enough friction to combat smartphone addiction.
@bogdan Thank you so much for taking the time to share such a detailed and honest 30-day review. We really appreciate your thoughtful feedback, both the highlights and the areas where you’d like to see improvement.
A few months later and I’m on the verge of giving up on MK.
First off it’s beyond me how come Mudita didn’t fix the fingerprint sensor or customize the power button behaviour. They did reduce the amount of pocket dials, but this was still an issue. It’s very embarrassing to wake up someone in the middle of the night because your phone is rubbish. As a workaround I disabled the fingerprint sensor and now I enter the SIX DIGIT pin every time. No option to have a four digit pin, given the idea is to not sideload apps, what’s the point of having six digit pins when even if compromised it won’t be dramatic.
Next up is the phone when travelling. I had to travel to Denmark and Germany this year. In Denmark mobile data was somewhat working, I had a super slow edge connection at all times even in bigger cities. I tried all kinds of settings, but still no change. Btw, I’m travelling from an EU country, which means seamless roaming and I’ve never had issues before. Next, in Germany there was no mobile data at all. Nothing worked and it’s a pain in the ass being abroad and not having internet.
Then the built in apps, I thought why not give them a try. I tried maps for navigation, we use Cyrillic and you can never be use if the maps db has the address in Cyrillic or Latin script. I though ok, let’s use Latin, but you then never know how this was transliterated so finding an address takes 5minutes. Next problem is you have identical street names in cities, small towns, villages. And it gives you a long ass list of addresses in tens of different small villages even when you type in the name of the city. To give it some credit it worked decently in Denmark when I had to drive somewhere.
The ebook reader app, since it’s the only one having access to the e-ink quality mode, I thought why not give it a try. Well, the font is gray and skinny and it doesn’t do a full refresh when turning pages which accumulates ghosting. The experience is worse than KOReader.
I tried @gezimos launcher and it’s awesome. This is done by just 1 bloke in his spare time. I mean, I’d be really embarrassed if I was the Mudita dev team and PMs. It’s unacceptable that bugs such as the sensitivity of the fingerprint sensor are not addressed first. Not to mention the notifications, which is a whole story in itself. Who thought it’s better to unlock your phone to check if you have a missed call instead of this being somehow manifested when the phone is locked? And now that I have to enter a six digit pin because of the other problem, it’s increasingly frustrating.
I’m from Germany and travelled to Denmark earlier this year. I didn’t experience any connection or roaming issues with Kompakt, and I don’t have any issues within Germany either.
I also have no network issues within my country, I’m guessing it’s because of the data roaming and some settings that the Kompakt does not automatically apply or does not switch to another network. No idea really, but I’ve traveled to many different countries with an iPhone before on the same plan and cellular provider and never had any issues. To me it’s obviously a software issue.
For me, this is the main reason I still give the Kompakt a chance. This and sideloading a Cyrillic keabord, plus Viber.
Viber might be one of the things I will uninstall in due time… when I feel I can manage my digital addiction, but not having the ability to type in my native language is just a no go.
There should be a new major update in two weeks for the Kompakt… Let’s see if they fix more thing than they break this time. Or if they will learn from their mistakes and start implementing quick “hotfixes”…
@bogdan
Thank you for taking the time to share such a detailed follow-up. We really appreciate your honesty, and we do understand that this is constructive feedback, it’s exactly this kind of input that helps us keep improving Mudita Kompakt.
A few points I wanted to touch on directly:
Fingerprint sensor & power button behavior
You’re right that sensitivity and accidental wake-ups have been a recurring frustration. In the update (rolling out this month), we introduced new fingerprint unlock modes (tap vs. press & tap) to give users more control. We’ll continue refining this based on feedback.
PIN code length
I’ll pass on your suggestion about 6-digit vs. 4-digit PINs. Security decisions are always a balance, but we understand the desire for flexibility here & your suggestion has been noted.
Travel & roaming issues
Manual network selection is also coming in 1.3.0, which should make roaming more reliable in situations like you experienced in Denmark and Germany. This was one of the most requested features by frequent travelers.
Maps & navigation
Offline Maps is still evolving. We’re actively collecting feedback on search and address handling (including Cyrillic vs. Latin script and duplicate names) so your examples are very helpful.
E-book reader
I will pass on the info about ghosting and font rendering. Improving the e-reading experience on E Ink is on our Mudita Kompakt roadmap- which you can check on our website.
Notifications
We’ve seen similar requests around lock-screen indications for missed calls/messages without requiring unlock. This is something that’s been passed on to our team. I will follow-up with them as to where we are at with this.
And yes, we’ve also noticed the great work community members like @gezimos have been doing. Seeing the creativity and dedication of the community inspires us too.
We know it’s frustrating when fixes don’t come fast enough, but please know your points are heard and already influencing the direction of updates.
Thanks again for sticking with Kompakt and taking the time to give us your feedback.
It’s good that you’re addressing some of those pressing issues.
The thing with the e-reader and other apps is that there’s hardly any chance they’ll get up to the level of established applications such as KOReader, the only reason someone would use them is because the eink modes are not exposed for other apps.
If I were your management, I’d seriously consider making the Mudita Kompakt OS open source . You have a very active community with a large part of being in the tech industry, so I’m sure you’ll get a lot of features and bug fixes for free. This would allow your company to focus on other areas. I’m sure you’ll end up selling more devices as enthusiasts are actively seeking hackable eink devices. If you’re not familiar look at what happened to Hisense, this is now 6 or 7 years old and does not support western cell bands, but people still buy it because the build quality is good, it has eink and you can replace the OS with open source Android variants. MK has a good build quality, large battery capacity, eink, proper network support, it has every chance of being a dream device for many if the software is right. Don’t miss this chance.
I still think they should invest in the music player and e reader. The phone should work well and have everything out of the box. There shouldn’t be a need to sideload apps.
Seeing the creativity and dedication of the community inspires us too.