I’m searching for the holy grail in the FAW world. When someone doesn’t fish in the low end $35-$50 range but move towards the $200 range “brand” Lemfo, Kospet, etc. line, then the Jelly Star is not expensive: with some discounts even $180 is possible
- I had a few round watches but I end up having to switch to square more. I always wanted to try DM100 / DM101 / S999 format larger rectangular watches. (I bought an Appllp 5 Max).
- The Jelly Star has a 3" screen but that’s not much more than 2.88" which is the larger rectangular watches diagonal.
- The Jelly Star has an arm band. That wouldn’t provide as watch feel as 5 Max, because it is detachable from the arm band and the mechanism makes it stay away from the wrist a little. However I think the fact that you can detach it temporarily any time can be a great advantage.
- The Jelly Star runs an Android 13, so you can be relatively close to the newest Android release (especially compared to the Android 7.1, 8 watches).
- People successfully flashed Lineage OS on it, so that is a very good sign for tinkerers.
- The Jelly Star is a real phone, so hopefully the calling and texting problems are less likely.
- The battery is better than the watches, although the downside is possibly the larger weight.
- You won’t have a heart rate monitor, which deterred me from the Vwar Nebula X 11, however the Jelly Star has enough upsides that I’ll take that sacrifice. Someone can supplement with a wrist HR band, for example I have Polar Verity Sense and Wahoo TICKR wrist HRs as well which are capable of multiple Bluetooth HR profile connections, so if I connect the watch to it, a fitness equipment can still pair to it as well. I’ll explore though if there are USB-C wired HRMs.
- It has a Mediatek Helio G99 SoC: MediaTek | Helio G99 | 6nm 4G Gaming Smartphone SoC which is better in every way than any other watches, and it has ample RAM and ROM
- What is very important for me with navigation: dual band satellite constellation support. It doesn’t matter that much - in terms of GPS precision - how many constellation your phone supports. What can really bring down the precision from 10m to 1m (or sub 1m) level is if any constellations are dual band. In case of the Helio G99 fortunately we can see: “GPS / QZSS L1+ L5 / Galileo E1 + E5a / BeiDou B1C + B2a / NAVIC” so QZSS, Galileo, and BeiDou constellations are all dual band. Here is a counter example: I sold my Motorola ThinkPhone, because I never would have imagined that someone doesn’t pair a dual band GPS SoC module to a top of line Qualcomm Snapdragon 8. But then I drive on the highway and suddenly the GPS thinks I’m a few meters next to the highway and Google Maps start to freak out to navigate back, all while I’m driving 80 mph. I have not experienced this the last 10 years, and if you also don’t want to then get an SoC with dual band. It locks in quicker, more precise, etc. So I’m looking forward to this experiment.
- OK, it’s not really a watch, but it’s very close to a 2.88" rectangular.
What are your thoughts? Mine is on it’s way. I’m thinking though if there can be some wrist band similar to the DM200 and alike (https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256807563894810.html) where there’s a button and I could wear it closer to the wrist / skin than the Jelly Star’s armband Clip and Armband for Unihertz Jelly Star - Unihertz.
It’s definitely not for everyone. Also, for certain watch faces people will need to use the appropriate launchers. For me I want a watch face to be functional, I had my own developed watch faces for android wear with 6 complications: European time (CET), NY Time, Sundown / sun up combined complication, batter level, local weather, date. This is besides my local West Coast US time as the main time. I’ll achieve these with widgets probably. I’ll see.
I’m curious about opinions and if anyone is on this journey.
