Unihertz Jelly Pro review: It's not just world's smallest 4G smartphone, but much more

Design: A Lilliput Android smartphone

The first thing that grabbed our attention is its form factor. The device can be called a Lilliput due to its compact size. We could easily hide it away in our pocket without any struggle. It is a miniscule measuring 92.4 x 43 x 13 mm in dimension, which makes it fit easily even in a kid's palm. However, it is too small that we forgot where we kept it at times.

Despite the small size, the device offers a great grip when held and is easy to use in one hand. However, the small form factor has its own disadvantages. It is pretty tough to type on the Jelly Pro. During our usage, we had to correct what we have typed many times. There's is no way that we could get the right spellings without the help of the corrections.

Even while browsing the internet, we faced difficulties in clicking small links and checking news feeds on Facebook. Especially, when we had to log out our Facebook account from the browser, we had to scroll too much to get the option.

Talking about the build quality, of course we can't expect a lot from the affordable handset. The device is made of plastic that seems to love fingerprints to a great extent. Despite the plastic build, the handset feels sturdy. The one good thing is that the back cover is removable and covers the two SIM card slots and the microSD card slot too.

On the design front, the Jelly Pro smartphone features cameras at the front and rear, a flash module at the rear, volume rocker on the left edge, power button and microUSB port at the right edge and a 3.5mm audio jack at the bottom. The display is a 2.45-inch screen and there are three capacitive buttons for the navigation purpose below the screen.

Jelly Pro vs large screen phones

In this image, the Jelly Pro is seen along with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4. It shows the difference in the form factor, especially the size. Any smartphone with a large screen can be used to perform various tasks without any limitations but that is not the case with the Jelly Pro. We already saw about that the handset is not meant for media consumption and cannot be used for entertainment or productive purposes.

Display: Not meant for media consumption

Unihertz has used a small 2.45-inch display in the Jelly Pro smartphone. The screen has a resolution of 240x432 pixels that is pretty low. It looks like the company hasn't bothered to give a great experience to the users in this front. The screen is nowhere comparable to the current smartphone standards and the pixels are noticeable clearly. The colors appear washed out but that is what we can expect from the super affordable handset. One thing that we need to mention is that the Jelly Pro is definitely not suitable for media consumption.

Hardware: Gets the job done the right way

The Jelly Pro is powered by a MediaTek MT6735 SoC paired with 2GB RAM and 16GB storage space. The other variant of the smartphone called Jelly is the base model with 1GB RAM and 8GB storage capacity.

The smartphone may not be a powerhouse in terms of performance but it gets the given job done the right way. The device renders a smooth performance without any clutter. During our usage, we did not find any issues while navigating through the UI and switching between the applications.

The Jelly Pro draws power from a 950mAh battery that is claimed to render up to three days of backup. However, while we used it, we had to charge it everyday as 4G was turned on all the time draining the battery even when the device was idle.

Camera: It’s good to have reasonable expectations

The camera quality and functionality are one of the major selling points of smartphones in the current era. However, we cannot expect such a quality from the Jelly Pro as the device is not meant to focus on the camera quality as the high-end and premium models in the market.

The Jelly Pro features an 8MP main camera at its rear with flash and a 2MP selfie shooter. As we know, the megapixel count does not meant that the camera can render good quality snaps.

The snaps clicked with the Jelly Pro gives a washed out look and have significant blur and noise. The rear camera seems to have acceptable color reproduction while the front camera gives the images a more washed out look.

We have taken shots with the HDR mode turned on and off and selfies with the beautification mode enabled. Take a look at the same from below.

HDR mode turned on

The picture taken with the HDR mode turned on looks sharp enough as seen here.

HDR mode turned off

Below is a camera sample with the HDR mode turned off.

Selfie camera

The front camera appears to be better and you can see the same from the sample here.

Selfie with beautification mode turned on

The beautification feature gives a washed out look as seen above.

Software: Smooth performance is assured

The Jelly Pro is based on Android 7.0 Nougat OS without any customized skin as seen on the other smartphones. There are considerable preloaded applications too. There appears to be nothing special in terms of software or interface but one noticeable aspect is these the interface is pretty smooth without giving any issues while using the handset.

Verdict…

The Jelly Pro will catch the attention of everyone with its small size. There is no denying that this handset is handy but this very aspect contributes to its cons as well. As mentioned above, the small display makes it difficult to be used for standard functionality such as playing games, watching videos, browsing the internet, etc. Even typing becomes a tedious task.

It can be a good companion to those who are in need of a secondary phone with Android OS and compact size. It scores high on the portability front as it can be easily carried anywhere you go. Again, in that case, they can hardly do any other activity apart from making and answering calls with ease.