Unihertz Jelly Star Review
Small and somewhat mighty, but when is a phone too small?
We’ve now approached a sad reality in the smartphone market where a small phone would most likely not be taken seriously by consumers. If the display isn’t a hulked-sized piece of glass, it probably means the phone won’t perform well. That’s just how OEM’s have trained their consumers to think in today’s market. That’s why when you first pick up the Unihertz Jelly Star, it’s easy to dismiss it as an unassuming toy instead of a legitimate mobile device. However, after spending some time with it as my single daily driver, I found the Jelly Star to be a lot more capable than the cute look might suggest.
Purchase Price: $219.99
The Jelly Star is just about as small as it gets
Itty Bitty real estate
As an Android smartphone, the Unihertz Jelly Star runs Android 13. You have the entire Google Play Store accessible in this itty-bitty little phone package. That means by having the Jelly Star in your pocket, you’ll still be able to call a Lyft, pay for your coffee using NFC, and all the other amenities we’ve been spoiled with on this platform. However, because this phone exists around a tiny 3-inch display, it isn’t something that your eyes will be addicted to staring at. Even though the IPS screen has 327 ppi, which makes reading text relatively clean, the 480 x 854 p resolution caps out what you can really do with this for long periods. My eyes would get fatigued looking at texts and videos after a period of time. This could potentially be a good thing for you if you’re looking to minimize your interactions with your smartphone while still maintaining the core amenities a smartphone can provide to your modern lifestyle. I didn’t put down the phone because it couldn’t do something I needed it to do, instead I set it down because it wasn’t enjoyable to use it longer than I needed it for.
I also found the viewing angles and colors of the images coming off of the display to be barely acceptable. It’s not unusable, but as to be expected from a $200 phone, colors are dull and the display doesn’t get that bright. This is still much better than something like the BLU Vivo 5 Mini I reviewed ages ago. A phone like that, I couldn’t even see an image if my eye line wasn’t staring at the screen directly from the front. The Jelly Star starts losing detail when you get to more extreme angles of viewing. Regardless, this isn’t a display you’ll be watching YouTube videos for hours on anyway, but it’s probably still a positive mark for the product..
Can Hang With You
You have access to the full Google Play Store
Android 13 runs nicely on the Jelly Star and it’s an overall clean Android experience. A MediaTek Helio G99 SoC powers the phone, with 8 GB of ram and 256 GB of storage supporting the user experience. The Jelly Star isn’t going to hold you back. I didn’t sacrifice any of my daily apps when I swapped my sim card into this mini phone. My Tesla unlocked when I walked up to it. Sure it wasn’t as consistent as some flagship phones I reviewed in the past, but the functionality is still there. Bluetooth, NFC, and most of the smartphone functions we’ve come to rely on are here on this budget device. The AAA mobile game I’ve been addicted to actually runs surprisingly well. Sure Honkai Star Rail needs a few more seconds to load in and out of maps, but the actual gameplay experience was totally playable. The 60 Hz refresh rate from the display keeps transitions from looking like last-gen budget devices, and microSD card support helps manage whatever storage I need to keep. I really didn’t find anything to dislike here. It was acceptable and I could live with the day to day performance coming from the Jelly Star.
Ironically, what gets a bit difficult to cope with is the small form factor of the phone. Don’t get me wrong, if you’ve been following my career here at the Sypnotix for some time now, you’ll know that I am a huge promoter for smaller phones. While this may not be the smallest phone I’ve held in terms of size, the shape of the phone is a bit strenuous in my hand. After a week using the Jelly Star as my only phone, I started feeling a stinging sensation on my arm for a number of days. As soon as I left the Jelly Star for the next phone I was reviewing, I have yet to feel that sensation again. Due to the smooth texture and rounded body, there really aren't any good angles to grip the phone by traditional means. I ended up clawing the phone as that was the only position I felt comfortable gripping the device without worrying that I would drop it.
Spotty Reception
I used T-Mobile with the Jelly Star
I normally don’t discuss cellular reception and call quality as most phones out there have hit a certain threshold of acceptable quality. I used the Jelly Star with T-Mobile, which it claims was compatible with the carrier’s LTE network. This Unihertz phone is advertised to also work on Verizon as well. While my LTE connection was a bit spotty and weaker than I normally experienced in the same areas I use my other smartphones in, I would still say it is reliable enough from a connection perspective.
NoThing Phone Is That You?
The Jelly Star has a similar rear LED notification light setup made popular by the Nothing Phone.
I did however find the call quality to be murky at best. During my time with the Jelly Star, I often had people on the other side of the line find it difficult to process my words. I sounded hollow and distant to them. At first I thought I was potentially covering the microphone on accident due to the difficulty of finding a proper grip. Even after adjusting my hand position to only the frame on the sides, I would occasionally have the same issues.
The speaker is also not that great in quality. It gets loud and is serviceable, but the sound coming out of the phone is a bit recessed and congested. That pushes through to when you have a phone call put on speaker. I found it hard to hear and communicate through the speaker during calls even in a relatively quiet environment.
camera Quality
While we’re still on negatives, the single 48 MP back camera, as well as the 8 MP front camera aren’t usable beyond perfectly lit scenes. While I was somewhat surprised what it could give me in an ideal landscape scenario as some pictures turned out pretty well, the camera falls apart everywhere else. The sensor isn’t good enough to pick up the proper details and maintain focus on close up frames. Low light scenes are basically an unfocused, grainy mess. They’re not really usable photos no matter how hard you try. So this essentially becomes a day shooter that can at best be a minor tool to document your life for your social media stories. I don’t think anyone looking to buy the Jelly Star are anticipating a good shooter and that’s totally fine.
Battery life
The battery life is also one of the biggest hurdles to daily driving this little phone. The 2,000 mAh battery might sound okay on paper due to the low processing and screen power needed for such a small phone. Sadly, the practice didn’t live up to the expectation as the Unihertz Jelly Star ate up battery life quite rapidly. Minimal tasks and idling would be enough to take the phone down within the confines of a single work day.
Who is it for?
So while I would have loved to use the Jelly Star as a minimalist phone, certain rough spots made it difficult to live with that had nothing to do with the physical size. Being a phone first and foremost is pivotal to keeping a spot in a consumer’s pocket. We take that for granted nowadays because basically all phones have reached a certain threshold of quality. If you’re someone looking to utilize the Jelly Star as an alternative to the Punkt or Lite Phone, it unfortunately doesn’t capitalize on the utility that is required to be a minimalist phone. The unreliability of phone reception and the limited battery life keep the Jelly Star from starring in that manner. While Unihertz has made a tiny phone that is surprisingly capable of doing smartphone tasks, it’s still nothing more than a gimmick device.
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