Memory unlocked: Back when I smokeed cigarettes and before you could get high from vapes, when I wanted to see if another person at work was “cool” I would ask to borrow their lighter and look at the bottom corner for the telltale sign of ash packed into the little groove.

Thanks. That’s already set to grayscale out of the box. I guess what confused me was that screenshots were in color (when I sent them to my PC to look at) but on my old Lineage 16/Android 9 device with “reading mode” enabled, the screenshots were in grayscale.

Apparently screenshots are no longer affected by those settings in later releases.

It comes with Google maps, but I use Organic Maps with it. It’s got GPS and works fine.

I did have to turn off the compass-orientation feature since it jiggled the map too much for the e-ink display to keep up. Haven’t tried it for navigation yet, but I usually just listen to the voice prompts on that.

But you mentioned the colour correction is set to grey scale, isn’t that exactly what you want from reading mode?

I honestly don’t know. Maybe? I’d need to try with another Android 14 phone (which I don’t have handy right now) to see.

When I took a screenshot on the Minimal and emailed it to myself (to view on my laptop), the screenshot was in color.

On my OP3 on Lineage 16/Android 9, with “Reading mode” enabled, the screenshot was in black and white.

A number of things could be different, but that’s all I’ve been able to test at present.

It’s also possible to set your display to grey scale in the settings for “modes” so you could create your own mode there called reading mode and change the display settings for that custom mode.

Either I don’t have that option or it’s buried under a different name/menu path.

I could watch this video all day (from the product page next to the e-ink description). Is visual ASMR a thing?

When I was searching for a case on Amazon, at least one e-ink phone did pop up in the search results (clearly trying to piggyback on the search term). I’ve never heard of “Bigme” and it runs a much older version of Android 11. It also doesn’t have the keyboard (which is something I really wanted for a long time).

Edit: This one. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DGG5RSHC

guess I should say. I think Pine had one?

If I ever did see Pine having one, I’m not recalling it now. Maybe the Yotaphone (which is discontinued)?

Good questions!

Sadly, I cannot answer either of them. I would assume the battery is replaceable with some effort, and I have no idea about the screen. Considering these are currently pre-order devices releasing in small production-runs, I would imagine sourcing replacement parts would be taking it apart and searching Ali for the part numbers. That said, “where there’s a will, there’s a way”.

I have not attempted disassembly, but there are two very tiny torx screws on either side of the USB-C port. My assumption is that removing those allows the casing to slide apart. Perhaps when I’m feeling brave enough, I may take a peek inside and document my journey with some photos.

There also doesn’t appear to be an iFixit teardown yet, and a cursory internet search didn’t reveal any galleries of the juicy innards :(

More apt, but doesn’t quite have the same ring to it lol.

Just saw this got crossposted.

It does come with the full set of Google services pre-installed, so I’m not sure how good, out-of-the-box, this is for privacy. I’ve only partially de-googled it, but have to leave Play services enabled for RCS since group chats over MMS kinda suck lol.

According to the FAQ on Minimal’s website they do seem at least open to “mak[ing] the device more open to system customization in the future”. Most manufacturers don’t even acknowledge that, so here’s hoping they follow through.

Thanks, and yeah, that’s my hope.

Android, without significant modifications, just doesn’t seem suited to e-ink right now. Unless it’s buried and I haven’t found it yet, there no longer seems to be the “Reading Mode” I used to have in my Android 9 / Lineage 16 devices that would put the whole UI into greyscale mode. I feel like that would help the experience greatly on e-ink displays.

Wasn’t expecting a dad joke, but I’ll take it.

Probably the Python library would be the easiest place to get started.

https://meshtastic.org/docs/development/python/library/

I haven’t worked with it for a few months, but the documentation at least was pretty sparse. Despite that, it’s simple enough to follow the code.

Both lol.

Hardcopy for ensuring I actually own the book and an ebook version for convenience.

Plus, it’s hard to fill up a physical shelf with ebooks.

It was actually the Cat S22 flip that I found and instantly latched onto

Cat S22 Flip you say?

That’s what I’ve been rocking the last year. Absolutely love this thing. That was me watching DS9 on it, not because it’s the best way to watch DS9, but simply because I could lol

But yeah, exactly like you said, it was mostly calling, text, calendar, maps/navigation (Organic Maps), music player, bank app, Matrix, and email. The chat and email I could have gone without, but as my daily driver, they were pretty handy to have without being too intrusive. Bank app was a necessary “evil” since I bank with a small credit union and the nearest branch is 50 miles away - the only reason I needed it was to authorize the random payment that was out of the ordinary or remote deposit the odd check someone sends me (can’t do either of those through the web).

The main thing about it, for me, was that it could do all of my basics/necessities without being good at any of the time sinks (doom scrolling, endlessly browsing the web, etc). It could do those things, but it was not a good experience and naturally limited the time spent staring at it.

Low-tech is the way to go

It really is. The only thing I’ve found limiting is that I do not have anything, Minimal Phone included, that can take a picture worth a damn. Thankfully my friends are shutterbugs and usually capture the good moments and share those. I should look into dedicated digital cameras like you said.

“Unexpected item in bagging area. Help is on the way.”

For the past year my daily driver has been an Android-based flip phone that just does the bare minimum smart stuff, and I love it lol.

Hate to give up the flip, but yeah, plan is to daily drive the Minimal as its successor since it’s getting old and there’s nothing else close to it I can buy. Probably going to wait a few more days before committing as I’m still getting this one setup/configured the way I like it (it takes a while lol). If nothing else, it’s a cool secondary device I can tether to my flip phone and use as a mini e-ink tablet.

I really wish carriers made it easy to swap where your phone number is pointed because I would love one of these for weekend/evening use. But I’m pretty intimidated to switch full time.

I move my SIM card around and swap devices like people change shoes 😎. Sometimes I know I’ll need the full smartphone, most days I don’t (or if I’m camping, I’ll throw my SIM in my rugged smartphone). I’m not sure if eSIMs make that easier or harder (or no difference), but it’s nice to just physically move the card and be on my way.

Would also love to see a follow up in a few months to see if you found it sustainable.

Will do!

I’ve been on my “dumbphone” journey for almost 3 years now. It’s been the best change I’ve made in my life in a LONG time.

Same but only about a year myself and took a good 2 or 3 months to wean off having stupid apps for everything.

My flip phone did have a decent browser so i could look up random stuff when needed, though mostly it was calls, texts, and hotspot for my laptop.

I got this one for $399 too and like you said that’s about the most I would pay for it. Haven’t moved my SIM card over yet but will as soon as I finish setting it up to my liking.

Do you find yourself tempted to go back to doomscrolling?

At first, yeah, but not after I weaned off my old smartphone. Using a flip phone for a year kind of forced my hand. On the few occasions I put my SIM back in my smartphone, it was for a specific mission (almost always for work), and I didn’t have time or inclination to doom scroll. When I was finished, the SIM went back into the flip.

Glad I’m not the only one digging the low tech lifestyle lol.

Pretty slow but usable. Definitely some input lag when typing but not terrible. You can tell it processes much faster than it can update the screen.

I guess to put it in a frame of reference, the eink refresh is a bit faster than my Kobo.

Stills are the HD ones from Trek Core and the third “roll credits” from is a screen grab from the end of the episode I was watching (The Pegasus) when I made it.

My Blu-Ray of S2 isn’t much better than what’s on TrekCore, so I just got them from there.

It’s compressed with webp for the post.

Just did an HD remake of an old meme: