I think many of us have given a lot of critical feedback so far, mostly in the spirit of helping the Mudita team become aware of early issues and more quickly iterate on the phone. While I’m still on the fence if I will keep the device or not - I think it’s worth calling out some of the things that are really great about the Kompakt:
Form factor: The device feels really nice to hold and use. It’s just the right size in my opinion, the curved back makes it much more pleasant to hold than pretty much any modern smart phone I’ve used. I also like the soft touch feel of the back plastic
Calming vibe: It’s hard to put into words, but there is definitely a calming/relaxing feel when using the phone. It’s not shining lights in your face or screaming at you to clear notifications or badges. I keep the backlight off all day, and it’s especially enjoyable to use outdoors
Call quality: Despite some mixed reviews from others, the call quality has been perfectly fine for me. Not much to add here, other than it works as expected
Camera: Not going to rival an iPhone or digital camera, but the quality of the photos and experience of shooting them is better than I expected for this type of phone
Sideloading: Not very difficult, and I appreciate the option to customize this phone a bit to make it work for me. I personally have only added a podcast app, WhatApp, and Here We Go maps (which I will remove if the default app is improved)
Responsiveness: Generally, swiping, opening and closing apps, etc works relatively well . I’ve never tried an e-ink phone and wasn’t sure what to expect, but I think the speed is fine for what it is.
Hot spot: Can turn on and off with one click in the control center menu, my other devices connect quickly and I’ve had 0 issues so far.
Yes I think it’s mostly that, plus the minimal design and the rounded edges for a comfortable feeling when you hold the device. Agree, mostly e-ink though for me.
I have to add my opinion to this thread. I definitely rate the Mudita Kompakt positively. I know there are some issues in the apps, but hopefully those will be fixed with time and feedback.
After five days of use, 27% battery? that’s unbelievable!
It’s nice to carry a thing where doomscrolling is not possible. I use my former phone in the studio as a Spotify player.
Furthermore, as the discussions on this forum show, it is possible to change this phone to your image. It’s a new world and community for me as an artist, but I’m happy to learn.
The look of the phone is cool, although I can imagine some things less distinctive. With the case, the cool feeling is a bit lost.
The e-ink display is a major asset, and reading Dostoyevsky or Blake instead of scrolling through world news is exhilarating…
No room for negatives here, those are addressed in other threads.
I’m going to make a broad generalization here and say that I think a lot of the people complaining the most are the ones who don’t really want to disconnect that much. But thats not to say there arent many things that could be improved.
For example, why should I care about how many pixels my phone camera has when my goal is to be more present in the moment? If i valued photography so highly why wouldn’t i just buy a seperate camera?
Also, why would i care so much about a slow keyboard when my goal is to reduce the amount of texts i send? Hell, I almost prefer T9. I send less texts. People can call me.
You can also buy a dedicated, used Mp3 player for 10 bucks. Why would i care so much about the UI of the music on my phone when the phone was not really made to be a music player?
Half of the reason why this phone stands out, in my opinion, is because rather than our phones being “swiss army knives” (as someone on here once put it), our phones are just phones. We are reducing the time we spend on them. I understand there are some practical things some people need like security and GPS, but still. It feels like we are losing the plot a little bit.
If Mudita took everyone’s feature requests from this forum and implemented them, i think we’d just have another smartphone. For that reason, I hope Mudita sticks to their values on this phone going forward.
Nice I suspected as much when I pre-ordered the phone that it would have this effect, The pure had the same effect on me, their product line just has that effect, it simplifies life
