Chinese carrier Unihertz has announced the upcoming launch of Jelly Max, which it claims is the world's smallest 5G smartphone.
The company posted about it on X and later added a teaser to its website, but Unihertz has a history of making unusual smartphones.
The TickTock series, for example, has a customizable 1.3-inch touchscreen built into the back. We reviewed the TickTock 5G and you can see what we thought of the company's previous 5G device here. Their Atom devices are small and rugged (we've previously reviewed both the Atom and Atom XL) and the Tank series of rugged phones come with features like built-in laser or DLP projectors and laser rangefinders. The Titan series is like modern BlackBerrys with physical keyboards. We review the Titan here.
4-5 inches?
Now there's the Jelly series: tiny phones aimed at people with tiny hands. Probably.
The 3-inch Jelly Star, released in 2023, features a MediaTek Helio G99 processor and 4G connectivity and was crowdfunded on Kickstarter in just five minutes. Unihertz has used Kickstarter to launch other phones, so it's possible the Jelly Max could be given a similar crowdfunding approach.
Based on the teaser photo posted by Unihertz, which shows the Jelly Max resting on a six-row keyboard with function keys, it seems likely that the device will have a screen size of between 4 and 5 inches. It will be bigger than the Jelly Star, hence the name Max.
In the photo we can also see that the device has a fingerprint reader integrated into the screen and a camera in the upper left corner. Beyond that and the fact that it is a 5G phone, we don't know anything else at the moment.
The prices of the other smartphones that Unihertz makes are usually reasonable. The Jelly Star, for example, currently costs $209.
The 5G TANK3 Pro, which is now available for pre-order, is priced at $649.99, but that's a steep price for a Unihertz phone and it comes with a huge battery that drives up the price. Our best estimate would be around $300 for the Jelly Max, but we'll know for sure when more details arrive in the coming weeks.
