Reviews of Mudita Pure

There must be more than ONE phone delivered to backers now, i guess. Can anyone else who got one comment please? :slight_smile:

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@sandra Thank you for taking the time to write the review. Your feedback is really helpful & we are working to address everything you pointed it. Most of the issues are software related & we are doing our best to sort everything out. I believe @Bartosz_sp2fet will be addressing most of the software issues in a separate post.

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:heart::heart: :heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart:

I already can use the phone as my daily and only phone, and, the OS update (even though 1.1.15 didn’t address these issues yet) was easy.

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To the extent that this is caused by reception issues, it’s not like I can move. I live here.

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The facts. Haha. Again your review was great and honest :slight_smile: . Keep us posted on the improvements and everything that happens. I know there will be many who will either echo your review or give other perspectives, but thank you for being honest!

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First & foremost we would like to thank you @sandra for writing such an extensive review.

I will do my best to explain a few things that might be unclear after reading your article, however, it appears that you might not have done the first update, as you didn’t use the Mudita Center app for some of the features. We had recently released a new OS version (1.1.5 to be precise) that addressed a lot of bugs and errors found during the internal tests, including fixing the audio quality, which might be the biggest concern.

Now, let’s address some of the concerns you raised in your review (I’ll focus on MuditaOS things as that’s what I know the best :wink: ):

Currently, the center key usually means “do it to it”. It’s what you click to go to whatever’s under the cursor in the app menu, for example. When there are two things, “do a small thing to this specific widget” and “finalize the entire thing, the message, the contact, the setting”, the center key is the big thing and the left context key is the small, local thing. In my opinion, that’s backwards. Instead, I would’ve wanted the center key to be the small, local thing and the left context key to be the big thing.

You are right that the center button might be confusing at first, especially when you are used to a more classic approach. There were quite a few design decisions that pointed us in this direction - the most important one was following the rule of “non-distraction phone” - while we were heavily in the R&D phase of the general UX approach, this pattern was proven to have the least needed artifacts on the screen and the best consistency and usability.

There is an autolock setting, deep in the settings menu hierarchy, where you can set an autolock time from fifteen seconds up to twenty minutes, but you can’t turn off autolock. To lock it manually, this isn’t obvious at all, but the way you do it is by holding the # key (when you’re not in a text input field). I usually don’t want autolock on when I’m at home but I usually do want the phone to be locked while it’s in my purse.

True, there is no such option. The design decision here results from our concern for security, however, we don’t rule out changing it in coming patches. We will gladly look into it, thanks for pointing it out!

The speaker, for ring tones and SMS tones, is awful and most of the ring tones and text tones are very clipped and distorted because of that. During phone calls, sound quality is horrible for both me and for the other person. Easily the worst feature of the phone. It comes out of the box crankes up to the highest volume, and, like most speakers, sounds a little bit better and less clippy if you lower the volume a bit. But then it’s too quiet.

As I mentioned - the audio quality should be greatly improved in 1.1.5. We are constantly trying to catch all of the flaws and drawbacks during internal tests, and having community responses in our heads, we are prioritizing the most crucial problems on our roadmap. That said - as you are a quite active contributor, you can create an issue with the audio quality - it should speed up possible R&D.

You can’t have contact-specific tones.

That’s a brilliant idea - don’t hesitate to throw it on GitHub as a request - I think our team will take a look at it.

The main menu is a 3 by 3 grid of icons; on some similar phones I’ve then also been able to hit the corresponding number key to open that app. Not here. That would’ve been especially good in low-vision situations.

This sounds like a great idea - we’ll see how quickly we would be able to implement it.

You can’t set the meditation timer to my usual 20 minutes. 15 or 30 or 60 or 90 only. It also doesn’t save your meditation settings, I need to turn off “chime every 2 minutes” every time. You can turn off the meditation prematurely by hitting the right context key, labeled “stop”.

As I talked with our QA engineers, they confirmed that it is possible to set the timer to 20 minutes. I’ve also tested it and it works - you just have to write the desired interval using the keypad.

I can’t change the text message templates (“I’ll call you in five minutes” and such) on the device itself.

As you already noticed, it is possible by using the Mudita Center app. I’ll find out if it’s intentional to be able to edit those only using a PC app or are there any plans to allow it on the phone. To be honest, I think that sooner or later it will be implemented in the OS :slight_smile:

It comes with a handful of Nick Lewis songs (the headphone speakers sound OK) but those aren’t tagged with metadata (either that or, the song browser doesn’t work properly; the songs only show up under “all songs”).

Grouping the file tags in the music player is under development, so it should be fixed in the next updates :wink: Grayed-out options were intentionally left as a teaser :wink:

I miss incoming text messages while listening to music or when I’m on a call.

Audio mixing is actually in the research stage, but you can get the notification during audio playback/calls via a vibration. As you disabled it, you’ve lost the notification - definitely a big thing to consider - we’ll take a look at this and see what’s possible.

Sometimes text is truncated (for example, but not limited to, in the message templates) and I don’t know how to scroll it.

Did you try to use up/down buttons around the center button? I had no problems with scrolling the larger blocks of text (such as EULA), although it might be an issue in particular cases. We’re working on it.

And a quick responses to your summaries:

Love that I can turn of the backlight completely

<3

Can’t edit message templates

This will be available in the future for sure

Can’t go back to main screen easily

You actually can! Just press and hold the back button (the right one) - you should be able to go to the desktop within one click.

Can’t tether to tablets

That’s a topic for another thread - It’s related more to the target device’s drivers than to our Phone as we make a passthrough in the tethering mode.

Can’t use USB C headphones, only 3.5”

It is actually a business decision - we have a headphone Jack on purpose as it will give you an advantage of using the built-in audio codec.

Clunky meditation timer

Please be so kind to address it as specific as you are able to. I.e. if you have issues with how the screen looks like - one look is worth thousands of words.

Messed up context / center button semantics

Could you elaborate on this in detail? Or is it just the button assignment issue?

Bad for low-vision users
Tiny, unreadable font

We’re looking into this

Can’t send hearts♥ (there’s a handful of supported emoji)—I hope that a custom template will - solve this issue!

This will be fixed for sure :wink:

Can only do European / Latin text (with diacritics), no RTL, no CJK, no other scripts

That’s on our roadmap too.

Easy to miss incoming messages while calling or listening to music

If you have your vibrations disabled - yes. But this also will be fixed.

I hope that I addressed the most important topics. If not - don’t hesitate to ask, I’m here to respond to all your questions. And thank you once again for your review - we’re happy that you like your new daily driver, even if it does not fulfill all of your expectations.

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Thanks for helping us see that some of this may be software related. I want to have the phone with me already to start testing :slight_smile:

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can’t wait to read your review!

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Thank you so much for clarification :slight_smile:

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You’re welcome. If you had any question - feel free to ask :wink:

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Thanks for writing this. This is really helpful.

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You are definitively right about the meditation timer keypad, that works great and I will update the review.

I will do my best to explain a few things that might be unclear after reading your article, however, it appears that you might not have done the first update, as you didn’t use the Mudita Center app for some of the features. We had recently released a new OS version (1.1.5 to be precise) that addressed a lot of bugs and errors found during the internal tests, including fixing the audio quality, which might be the biggest concern.

I updated to 1.1.5 the other day and updated my review after doing so. I had a long phone conversation today (70 minutes) with bad audio on both ends. A lot of “what did you say?” and distortion (remember the sound of placing a 90s cell phone near a speaker?) Could be codec/antenna/reception related, sure, but I live where I live, I’m not gonna move for a phone, and I am comparing to other 3g phones. The ringtones are also still bad on 1.1.5.

You are right that the center button might be confusing at first, especially when you are used to a more classic approach. There were quite a few design decisions that pointed us in this direction - the most important one was following the rule of “non-distraction phone” - while we were heavily in the R&D phase of the general UX approach, this pattern was proven to have the least needed artifacts on the screen and the best consistency and usability.

So to clarify what I want.

Currently, when there is one thing, center button does it, and left button does nothing. This is good.

Then, when there are two things, currently center button does the big dramatic thing and the left button does the local, specific thing. This, I would want to switch.

I said as much while I was testing the OS on the simulator, but your team was able to convince me that it would feel better on the real phone, which I believed. In hindsight, I should’ve been adamant because it’s worse and I hit the wrong button often.

(Also, hardware-wise, the directions and center key are hard to use. All the other 14 face keys are a joy to use, absolutely amazing and well beyond expectations. The switch on the right is also great. The volume keys are slightly under par but I give them a passing grade. The directions and center are error prone and I make a lot of misclicks with them, and the creakiness associated with them doesn’t feel great. Unlocking the phone to read a message is an ordeal because of the center and directional keys are so bad. I need to hit center, #, center, right, center, center and that usually takes three or four tries. That’s indoors, with bare hands, in a warm and comfortable room.

This is software fixable: if the left context key takes over the role of the center key and if we could use num keys to open the messages, for example, it could be LCK, #, 6, LCK to open a message. Super easy even with mittens.

In that case, of course, I think the left key should remain the “small and local” key and the center key be the “big and dramatic interaction” key: in accordance with my precious issue that the key I use all the time to select apps should be the same key that selects fields in a contact, not the same key as the key that saves & exits that contact.)

True, there is no such option. The design decision here results from our concern for security, however, we don’t rule out changing it in coming patches. We will gladly look into it, thanks for pointing it out!

:heart: This was a bigger issue before I found out how to manually lock (which isn’t obvious. When the only way to lock was to wait for it to lock, but I couldn’t avoid it eventually locking, that was a bad time; that was worst of both worlds. Too short of a time and it’s a hassle to use the phone at home, too long of a time and I’ll accidentally call my ex from my purse. So knowing how to manually lock (hold #) is great.

If there comes a way to disable autolock, I will, but I can live with how it is.

Speaking more generally about UI decisions where discoverability is bonkerskly low (autolock, mediation time, add new conversation, add new note, scroll a truncated text message) I’m generally OK with all of these (although we do need to add a visual cue so we can see that messages are truncated). I’m OK with “simple to use” taking precedence over “simple to learn”. (Ideally one wants both, of course!)

As I mentioned - the audio quality should be greatly improved in 1.1.5. We are constantly trying to catch all of the flaws and drawbacks during internal tests, and having community responses in our heads, we are prioritizing the most crucial problems on our roadmap.

I love you guys and here is my chance to save face for all of us to say something like “yeah it’s better on 1.1.5”. But honesty is the policy that makes the most sense long term for a happy customer relationship (once people get their phones they’re gonna hear for themselves), and my honest take is that 1.1.5 still has bad audio (curse these “princess and the pea” ears of mine!) I do hope it can improve although it might be hardware limited.

That said - as you are a quite active contributor, you can create an issue with the audio quality - it should speed up possible R&D.

I will. Feel free to create Jira tickets for all of this stuff in addition to what I’ve already raised on GH.

As I talked with our QA engineers, they confirmed that it is possible to set the timer to 20 minutes. I’ve also tested it and it works - you just have to write the desired interval using the keypad.

You are right! Mea culpa on this one! I love 20 minute meditation!

Audio mixing is actually in the research stage, but you can get the notification during audio playback/calls via a vibration. As you disabled it, you’ve lost the notification - definitely a big thing to consider - we’ll take a look at this and see what’s possible.

:heart: I just really, really, hate vibrating phones.

Did you try to use up/down buttons around the center button? I had no problems with scrolling the larger blocks of text (such as EULA), although it might be an issue in particular cases. We’re working on it.

Yes, and your colleages helped me walk through this on GH. I thought I updated my review about that already. Additionally, it needs to become visually clear that a message is truncated (perhaps only show the upper halves of the letters on the last line?)

I have a message right now in the inbox on my Pure that looks like the whole thing at first glance but as I nav to it and scroll to it, there’s more.

You actually can! [go back to main screen easily] Just press and hold the back button (the right one) - you should be able to go to the desktop within one click.

As reported on GH, this freezes and then restarts the phone on 1.1.5. Additionally, that’s also how to turn the phone off, isn’t it?

[Tablet tethering is] a topic for another thread .

Agreed!

It is actually a business decision - we have a headphone Jack on purpose as it will give you an advantage of using the built-in audio codec.

The internal 3.5 DAC is fantastic, yeah. Love it. But, being able to optionally use USB C headphones would be good in case the 3.5" jack breaks, as happened within a month on my Doro 5517.

Please be so kind to address meditation timer as specific as you are able to. I.e. if you have issues with how the screen looks like - one look is worth thousands of words.

So three things.

  1. It defaults to “chime every two minutes” instead of remembering what I want
  2. I couldn’t discover how to set custom times (which is OK, see general note about discoverability)
  3. The time is jittery during mediation as reported separately on GH.

Or is it just the button assignment issue?

Yes, in addition to confusion between backspace being lower right or upper right.

Bad for low-vision users

The biggest problem here is the lack of a “return to main menu, centered” keyboard sequence, which is in the works. The 1–9 shortcuts for the icons (and their sublist items) will also help.

we’re happy that you like your new daily driver, even if it does not fulfill all of your expectations

I do :heart:

I love it.

Listen, I’m a designer too, and a nitpicker. If I were to write a similar list for the iPad, it would be ten times longer, or for the Switch it’d be about the same length as for the Pure. Good things can have flaws. The audio quality is the biggest problem, the rest is fixable.

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Oh, re the truncated scrolling! It’s also an issue when selecting templates, not just when reading messages.

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When did you order your phone? I’d really like to see some video of this cellphone, this review has me increasingly concerned about my purchase decision. $300 was a lot for me to drop on a phone while I’m in US university and working part-time. My expectations have been set extremely high from what Mudita has told us. If the Mudita doesn’t work out I might have to move over to smartphones which sucks.

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I pre-ordered when the crowdfunded campaign, so my unit should be delivered late December/early January.

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Glad to know, I’ll reserve any concerns until I see your review. At least if this phone falls through I should be able to buy a Pinephone Pro in it’s early stages (which is okay because I’m comfortable with linux)

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Now I’m concerned about speaker quality as well as I was really looking forward to using the phone to play my music. Can anyone make a video to give us an idea of what the speaker quality might be like?

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Hey :wave:t5:

Given the scope of my responsibilities, a unit is always an arm stretch away. Posting a quick video of how it sounds on mine:

Do keep in mind that the sound is recorded by another phone & uploaded online, so it doesn’t fully reflect the quality (per request I can record it with my compression microphone once I’m home).

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More videos regarding navigating our phone, as well as presenting features of Mudita Pure itself are bound to drop on our Youtube channel soon!

I won’t address the previously mentioned software issues - not to repeat ourselves - but feel free to ask any ‘general’ questions (do tag me please)!

If any hardware problem arises, a bug/problem seems persistent, or for any matter concerning your order it’s best to reach out to me directly at support@mudita.com for a more personalized experience

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Sounds more than good enough to me.

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