Atom proves mighty goods do come in small parcels

Noel Campion finds the Unihertz Atom is such a little gem that he sets aside his big love for big screens.

I love phones with big screens — the bigger the better to be honest.

However, a bigger screen means a bigger phone and although most flagship phones now have tiny bezels, your typical smartphone is just too big for some situations.

This is where the Unihertz Atom comes to the rescue, making it the ideal smartphone for those who love to pursue outdoor adventures or perhaps have a job that keeps them outdoors and doesn’t want to leave their technology at home.

The Unihertz Atom is a really tiny smartphone and the second smartphone from the company that brought us the even small Jelly Pro, last year.

The Atom may be small but still manages to pack a host of tech into its tiny body.

It features a 2.4-inch touchscreen display that makes input challenging at times, but incredibly useable with a little effort.

The rugged exterior is reminiscent of the Samsung tough and active phones and the Atom has undergone stringent IP68 tests for protecting against vibration, shock, extreme temperatures, dust, and water.

The Atom is built like a brick and looks like it too.

The rounded corner edges with stylish red accents have extra protection designed to make this almost bulletproof. The back has a diamond cut pattern making it nice and grippy and is securely held in place with eight sunken screws around the sides.

The only other places you’ll see red accents on the Atom is the slot for a lanyard (lanyard included) on the bottom and the dedicated PTT (push-to-talk) button on the right side.

You’ll also find the power button here as well as a USB type-C socket. And, believe it or not, there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top — yay! I like the fact that because the charging port is on the side, Unihertz thought to supply a charging cable that has a 90-degree connector on the end that fits into the phone.

If you connect a headphone into the 3.5mm socket you can listen to FM radio on the Atom, handy for those locations where a 4G signal might be spotty.

Despite petite dimensions, the Atom feels bulky and thick, but not unwieldy at 108 grams. Beneath the 2.4-inch screen is a fingerprint scanner with capacitive navigation buttons on either side.

On the right edge, you’ll find the volume rocker, along with the SIM card tray. The fingerprint scanner is quick when it works, but I didn’t have a 100% success rate while using it.

However, there’s also a face unlock feature that did work most of the time. This is a real bonus, especially for those who intend on using this outdoors where there’s a good likelihood it’s going to get wet rendering the fingerprint scanner unusable.

The LCD screen isn’t anything fancy but does get the job done. It’s plenty bright for most situation, but with a resolution of 432px x 240px, it’s not super sharp.

Like previous Unihertz phones I’ve tested, the Atom doesn’t come preinstalled with a screen protector but one comes in the box.

Thanks to its size, this is the easiest screen protector you’ll ever install.

Overall performance is excellent, in part thanks to a stock version of Android 8 Oreo.

The phone feels zippy during use and apps load fast. You get 4GB of RAM and storage is 64GB, but no microSD support, instead there’s a dual SIM tray. The Atom feels on par with most mid-range phones, which is impressive considering its size and price point.

Despite the stock version of Android, there’s additional software pre-loaded. This includes an app called Zello, which is used for the PTT feature.

There’s also an SOS app and a useful Toolbox app that contains a sound meter, compass, flashlight, bubble level, picture hanging level, heart rate monitor, height measure, magnifier, alarm, plumb and a protractor.

The rear camera is 16MP and comes with a flash.

The front-facing selfie camera is 5MP.

The camera app is fairly basic and overall performance feels a little slow. The rear camera is capable of producing decent results in good lighting but don’t expect flagship quality photos.

The 2,000 mAh battery is capable of delivering up to two days of use on a single charge.

This doesn’t include heavy gaming or other intensive apps, but then that isn’t what the Atom was intended for. Additional features include NFC, so it works great for things seamless connections to Bluetooth speakers as well as working with Google Pay.

Overall, the Atom is a great device for its intended purpose. If you train a lot or like to go running regularly, then this is the perfect second phone for that purpose.

It’s light, small and will fit anywhere, but Unihertz also sells accessories including a bike mount and armband.

Atom is available from unihertz.com for $259.99.