This affordable e-reader also aims to be your minimalist phone.
This phone encourages you to spend more time in touch with nature.
Mudita is not the first company to develop a phone with an E Ink display, but its Kompakt model goes beyond simply incorporating the advantages of electronic paper into smartphones. According to the company, the Kompakt is a “minimalist E Ink phone” designed to reduce distractions, as it features a limited set of pre-installed applications.
This new device is offered to consumers through a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. Early backers can reserve one for approximately $325, with shipments scheduled to begin in April 2025. The retail price is expected to be close to $476, making it a more affordable option compared to other E Ink phones from brands like Hisense.
Unlike the Boox Palma, which is a 6.13-inch reader with full Android, the Kompakt has a smaller 4.3-inch E Ink display with a resolution of 800x480 pixels and a simplified operating system. It runs on MuditaOS K, a custom operating system based on the Android Open Source Project. This system avoids all Google services to ensure that “your data is never shared or monetized by third parties” and only includes a small number of essential applications, such as a phone app with SMS messaging, offline maps, a voice recorder, a calculator, an 8MP camera limited to taking photos, and an ePub and PDF reader. There is no access to the Google Play Store, and while other Android applications can be manually installed, compatibility and full functionality are not guaranteed.
The Kompakt features a sliding switch that allows for a “hardware-level cutoff of GSM and the three microphones,” although the company does not specify exactly how this works or to what extent these functions are disabled.
Additionally, the Kompakt includes a 3,300mAh battery, which can provide up to six days of standby, has an IP54 rating, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a fingerprint reader, NFC, wireless charging, and a tray for two SIM cards that also accepts a microSD card to expand its 32GB of storage.
There will be two versions of the Kompakt, optimized for North American cellular networks or for global networks, but the phone is not compatible with 5G connectivity, which will likely discourage its use for accessing social networks and may limit its connectivity to 2G, 3G, and 4G LTE in some areas.