I ditched my smartphone for this E Ink handset for two weeks, and it rewired my brain

Since I started covering mobile phones 20 years ago, I’ve watched them transform from simple devices to having an all-encompassing impact on our lives. It’s rare to find someone who doesn’t spend at least a few hours a day engrossed in their smartphone, but awareness of this growing. 

There have been a handful of new devices intended on challenging the status quo, including the Light Phone 3, the Minimal Phone, and now, the Kompakt minimalist phone from European manufacturer Mudita. I’ve been using it for the last couple of weeks, and it’s been refreshing to simplify my connectivity to phone calls and text messages. 

Also: The best cheap phones you can buy: Expert tested

The first thing that caught my eye about this phone was the E Ink display. E ink provides a clear, viewable display in all lighting conditions and I love it on my eBook readers, so I was happy to see that clarity and comfortable display transfer to the phone. 

Compared to modern smartphones, the Mudita Kompakt is a bit chunky at half an inch thick and five inches long. It’s still rather light though, weighing just 164 grams and covered in soft touch material so it feels good in the hand. The bezels around the 4.3-inch display are rather large, with three touch sensitive buttons for back, home, and quick settings so navigating to key elements is intuitive, whether you’re coming from Android or iOS.  

The phone features a fingerprint sensor to lock and unlock, and it’s housed on the power button in the middle of the right side. I’m a huge fan of consolidating these two purposes to the same button, and it works flawlessly. As far as other connectivity goes, it has a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top and a USB-C port on the bottom. 

You can charge via the USB-C, but rather surprisingly, it also supports wireless charging. All in all, the battery is quite good. Mudita says it can last for up to six days on standby, with around two days with standard use. In my testing, I found this to be about accurate. 

On the left side of the device is a button that houses one of the device’s key features: Offline mode. Switching to this mode disables all wireless connectivity and support for the camera, so it truly becomes distraction free. This option to disconnect is one of the phone’s core features, but obviously won’t be for everyone. 

Speaking of the camera, it feels like an unnecessary element. It is a 8MP camera with photos that look like they were taken over ten years ago. It also requires connecting to a Windows PC and launching File Explorer to access the internal storage of the Kompakt manually. You can also just share photos via text messaging as it’s much faster than using a computer.

Performance with the limited 3GB of RAM and Mediatek MT6761V/WBA processor has been fine in the minimalist MuditaOS (which is based on Android), but there is certainly some lag in certain apps — such as the camera — due to the E Ink display technology and processor/RAM specifications. You will also likely notice some lag in text messaging if you tap quickly on the keyboard, often resulting in getting ahead of the spell checking feature.

Also: The best phones you can buy (including how Samsung and Apple stacks up)

As far as apps go, in addition to phone calls and text messages, the Kompakt includes an alarm, calculator, chess game, maps, meditation, weather, and a voice recorder. The Mudita Center desktop app is available as a free companion for MacOS, Windows, and Linux so you can sync contacts to the phone, update the firmware, and transfer compatible eBooks to the phone to use with the Reader application. 

I was looking forward to using this device as an e-reader, but the display is too small for long reading sessions, and the Reader application is slower to turn pages than my Kindle so it probably won’t be replacing it any time soon. 

The device’s core feature is the phone, and in my testing, calls sounded great on both ends. Text messaging works well if you don’t tap too quickly on the keyboard and there is no support for voice-to-text so you need to tap out your message on the E Ink display. The other apps supported minimal functionality and the camera captured fairly basic photos so it is clearly a phone optimized for calls, some texting, and not much else. And that’s the point. 

ZDNET’s buying advice

The Mudita Kompakt is a minimalist phone designed to limit distractions and notifications that may be holding you as a digital prisoner to your smartphone. As our phones continue to demand more and more of our attention, the appeal of such a device is catching on as people look to reconnect on a personal level and limit the number of hours spent staring at the screen. 

If you’ve been considering investing in a so-called “dumbphone”, Mudita’s Kompakt is an affordable choice with an attractive — if very simplified — E Ink display and one-switch disconnect feature. 

What are the tariffs in the US?

The recent US tariffs on imports from countries like China, Vietnam, and India aim to boost domestic manufacturing but are likely to drive up prices on consumer electronics. Products like smartphones, laptops, and TVs may become more expensive as companies rethink global supply chains and weigh the cost of shifting production.

Also: Tariff war has tech buyers wondering what’s next. Here’s what we know

Smartphones are among the most affected by the new US tariffs, with devices imported from China and Vietnam facing steep duties that could raise retail prices by 20% or more. Brands like Apple and Google, which rely heavily on Asian manufacturing, may either pass these costs on to consumers or absorb them at the expense of profit margins. 

The tariffs could also lead to delays in product launches or shifts in where and how phones are made, forcing companies to diversify production to countries with more favorable trade conditions.