Android 14 running on an E Ink screen with cellular connectivity and a QWERTY keyboard? Life is no longer but a dream for the backers of the Minimal Phone, which started shipping out units to its faithful supporters nearly a year after going viral as possible vaporware. It’s good timing, considering we’re all in the market for a device to help us log off more these next four years. E Ink is hardly the perfect solution to being chronically online, but it can frustrate you enough to put the device and log off the internet altogether.
The Minimal Company’s Minimal Phone has a 4.3-inch touch E Ink screen with a backlit black and white display. It’s a device meant for text over graphics, though it can handle those, too. A full QWERTY keyboard embedded harkens back to the carefree Bush Jr. Administration days, with 0.015mm travel—nails will need to stay short for this to be comfortable to type on. The software runs Android behind the scenes so that you can install apps from the Google Play Store. The launcher is curated to showcase only the necessities, including email, your crypto wallet, Google Maps, and even rideshare, an option exhibited in promotional marketing. The phone supports wireless payments like Google Play and has GPS. There’s a 3,000 mAh battery to power it all and even a 16-MP camera to capture photos, though you’ll have to inspect them on another display.
Here’s where E Ink devices start to show their limitations: the processor inside t