Minimal Phone 2 brings back the physical keyboard to fight screen addiction
The Minimal Company has unveiled the Minimal Phone 2, a compact Android phone with a physical QWERTY keyboard, a 4-inch OLED display, and a focus-first operating system called Minimal OS. Priced from $599 and shipping in December 2026, it aims to reduce screen time with features like grayscale mode, app limits, and a notification LED. It runs full Android with Google services, but an official de-Googled ROM will also be available.
the average person will spend 0 years of their life looking down at a screen. endless feeds, alerts and algorithms are built to keep you there — long after there is anything left to see.
- ocd
I just want BlackBerry back.
Every single time one of these new "minimal", "dumb", "lightweight" phones comes up today it's just marketing wrapped around a kneecapped Android device. I am in the market for something simpler that does nothing more or little else than play local media/audio, read common document/text formats, ordinary SMS, current standard of telephony, and a different OS than Android. I have not seen anything like this yet.
- al_borland
> Full Android. Every app you already use, there when you need it.
So it still requires a user to have self-control. If people had that, they could just uninstall the problematic apps from the phone they already have.
- agiacalone
When I think about 'minimal' and 'phone', $600 USD isn't the number that makes sense to me.
- forgetcolor
Why is this phone barely lighter than an iPhone air with a massively bigger screen, two camera lenses, etc? I'm glad it's not heavier, but I would have hoped for it to be the lightest phone -- by far. (Minimal 2 is 7g lighter than iPhone Air).
- t0bia_s
Small size (72mm is maximum width for use by one hand), jack port, physical buttons, aluminium body, open bootloader... Ok, I'm listening. But that price...
Why do we even need 12 GB RAM for distraction free phone? Why there is no microSD port?
- ralferoo
Wonder why they chose a different layout for the symbols on the physical keyboard than the default keyboard for Android. I'm sure that'll confuse a lot of people considering migrating, or worse, having to switch between them.
- karim79
Haptic feedback on virtual keyboards is just fine if you ask me. I'm not sure why it needs mechanical keys, I don't really see how that adds anything of value on a phone these days.
I'm typing on my pixel 6 Pro and it still feels satisfying.
Gimmick?
- gered
The most exciting thing for me about this phone is the physical size. It's not a "phablet" like every other phone these days, it's basically Nexus 4 sized (perfect size for my big hands) which means easy one-handed use.
Not sure if I will actually get one since my Pixel 4a 5g (w/ LineageOS + microG) is still going strong, but I will admit that I'm tempted by this.