Unihertz Titan Pocket Review

So when my BlackBerry Key2 started acting up, i was happy that someone took on the matter of physical keyboard cellphones, namely Unihertz with the Titan Pocket, funded on Kickstarter.

Since there are not many alternatives (yes im looking at you, OnwardMobility), i decided to give it a try.

I remember thinking "aww, the KeyOne is so huge compared to my Q10" so the Titan Pocket formfactor was really appealing.

After a little over one week, those were my impressions:

CONS

  • it is quite heavy/bulky for its size. This is probably due to the big battery. This makes it hard to get a good grip though.
  • the lockscreen pattern is really small, so its not possible to unlock the device reliably. No picture unlock unfortunately. Maybe a screen which is a bit bigger would help a lot there.
  • the camera is only ok-ish (see picture comparison below).
  • the physical keyboard only works correctly with the onscreen keyboard activated (otherwise the alt-characters like numbers dont work). There is a workaround to only use the default keyboard.
  • by default, apps in background are killed quite rigorously, which makes problems with e.g. AccuBattery or Gadgetbridge. Luckily, thanks to this post and dontkillmyapp i found out that it is the "App Blocker" which can be configured.
  • flaky bluetooth connection (reconnect issues), e.g. with car or smartwatch. This is the biggest problem, because the connection just wont re-establish for a while.

On the PRO side

  • the formfactor is a good choice for me in general, if it were a bit slimmer/lighter.
  • battery-life is great (of course since it features a huge battery and kills apps in background by default ;)), i could normally last 3 or 4 days without recharging.
  • its a device with a rather current Android 11 version and there were multiple firmware updates during my testphase. Nobody knows how long they will be provided though.

So after a little over a week i decided, its not my daily driver and went back to a Key2.

Here are the comparison pictures (taken in lower light)

Titan Pocket
BlackBerry Key2
iPhone 8