Unihertz Titan Pocket
2022-06-05
The Titan Pocket is one of the latest in a series of successful crowd-funded devices from Unihertz. They specialise in low-volume, niche devices, such as the tiny Jelly 2, and the behemoth that is the Titan (definitely not pocket).
One of the best phones I've had was a BlackBerry Q10, and it's a shame their devices are no more. When the Titan Pocket was announced, I was really pleased to see a phone "inspired" by the Q10, so had to snap it up. It's great, but certainly won't be for everyone. The battery is amazing. I generally get over 3 days on a charge which I haven't experienced since before smartphones became a thing. There are benefits to pairing a giant battery with non-flagship chips.
This isn't a review of the device (short-version: I like it). This post just contains a few tidbits I found having used it for the past 6 months or so to make the device really nice to use.
But the screen is tiny!
And square! Surprisingly, I've not really had any problems with apps on this screen that couldn't be fixed by changing the the "mini" view mode which compresses the viewport to be about two thirds of the screen width, making it a more typical rectangle. When I have had to do that, it's usually just for a login screen so I can see the submit button etc. The only app which is a bit clunky in use is Google Maps, but I've since started using Waze, which works just fine.
No notifications?
When I first started using it, I noticed that I got notifications for SMS and Whatsapp messages, but other apps like Signal and email were not giving notifications. It took a bit of blundering through the settings and a few trips to the Titan's subreddit, but eventually found the answer - "App Blocker" in Settings -> "Intelligent Assistance" -> App Blocker. Just turn it off.
Keyboard scrolling
You can swipe over the keyboard to scroll horizontally and vertically in apps. For some reason this is turned off by default, but you can turn it on in Settings -> Intelligent Assistance -> Scroll Assistant and flick the switch to on to enable it in all apps. The only app I noticed it not working in was Firefox, but that can be addressed in the same menu as before, just checking the box next to the troublesome app.
Force orientation for specific apps
I've not generally needed this, but the one mobile game I play, Data Wing, forces horizontal orientation, which as you might imagine is a bit awkward on this device. To fix, head back to the Intelligent Assistant settings page and choose Rotation Control. Enable it, find Data Wing in the list, select it and set it to "Force Portrait" to fix the orientation. It's also useful for YouTube when using "full screen".
The keyboard layout is weird
I've seen quite a lot of complaints about alt, shift etc. being on the top row of the keyboard, and that they keyboard itself is quite stiff. Whilst these certainly gave me a bit of (minor!) trouble for the first few days, after that I didn't even notice. A new device always takes a little getting used to, but once you are, it's fine.
I heard the camera is pretty bad
It is. But if the light is just right and you have a steady hand, you can get a passable image out of it.