{"id":3251,"date":"2026-07-04T17:58:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T17:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=3251"},"modified":"2026-07-04T17:58:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T17:58:29","slug":"ikko-mindone-pro-hands-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=3251","title":{"rendered":"The square-ish phone that I wanted to love"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The Ikko MindOne Pro<\/a> is delightfully small.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I keep calling it a square phone, which isn\u2019t quite right; the screen is square, but the phone itself is slightly rectangular. The camera flips up so you can use it for selfies \u2014 you can even open it partway to use as a stand or a kind of PopSocket. There\u2019s a Clicks-style keyboard accessory<\/a> that also adds a magnetic ring and a headphone jack. I tried so hard to like it, but this phone is a miss no matter how you look at it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I used it like a normal phone. I downloaded a minimalist launcher and tried using it as kind of a dumb phone. I put the keyboard case on. I took the keyboard case off. Nothing feels quite right.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Ikko<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Hip to be square.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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I first met the MindOne Pro<\/a> at CES back in January. It\u2019s made by Ikko, a company based in Shenzhen that has mainly produced earbuds and audio accessories until now. The MindOne Pro is the company\u2019s take on a small smartphone, or an AI gadget, or\u2026 both I guess. It ships globally and is priced at $499, though it\u2019s currently marked down to $429 on the company\u2019s website.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As charming as the hardware is, I noticed some yellow flags right off the bat when it got significantly warm as I was setting it up. Initial setup is always a lot for a phone\u2019s processor to chew through, but the MindOne got noticeably hotter on that first day out of the box than most phones I use. A week later it has settled down a bit, though it doesn\u2019t take much to warm it up again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Ikko<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The flip-up main camera does double duty for selfies.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Ikko<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

It also acts as a kickstand, which honestly rules.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Battery life is also pretty dismal. I watched it drop from the mid 90 percents to the 60s over the course of an hour and a half, and I wasn\u2019t doing anything super taxing. Scrolling through reels, surfing around on Google Maps, and streaming some music \u2014 all over Wi-Fi \u2014 was enough to eat through a third of the phone\u2019s battery in less than two hours. That doesn\u2019t feel great.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The bad news just keeps coming. The novel camera design is a good idea, but the camera itself just stinks. Color processing is all over the place. It usually handles daylight okay, but photos taken under dim indoor lighting look too green.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The phone\u2019s square screen is nice in theory \u2014 at least until you remember that the mobile web is built for vertical rectangles. The phone\u2019s default behavior is to fill the entire screen area, which means cropping into the middle of vertical videos and websites. It\u2019s not ideal and the onscreen keyboard fills up more than half the display area.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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1\/3<\/strong>

The default screen aspect ratio and resolution make this interface nigh impossible to use.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Thankfully, Ikko includes some controls in the quick settings shade to help mitigate this. There\u2019s a toggle for resolution, which fits more content onto the screen, and a toggle to change the display to a vertical aspect ratio with black bars on the sides of the screen. It\u2019s helpful for the occasions when you run into text boxes and date pickers that just don\u2019t work on the square screen, though it means you\u2019re dealing with a smaller display area inside of an already small display.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Maybe that\u2019s the point, though. I can appreciate the MindOne more if I look at it as a minimalist phone or an alternative phone to use on weekends. I like the idea of something like a Light phone that simply doesn\u2019t run the mind-numbing apps like Instagram that I can\u2019t seem to quit. But sometimes you need an Uber app, so I have trouble with all-in minimalist phones that feel too limited. The MindOne could be an alternative \u2014 sure, you can open the Instagram app, but it\u2019s such a bad experience maybe you\u2019ll do it less. Maybe I lack willpower, but I found myself scrolling Instagram just as often, except having a worse time. The best minimalist phone is a cellular smartwatch<\/a>, etc. etc.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Ikko<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The keyboard case just didn\u2019t \u201cclick\u201d for me.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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I even have a hard time recommending the keyboard case. Again, it seems great in theory. There\u2019s a little battery inside and you can flip a switch to have it charge the phone up while you use it. But somehow the keys are more fiddly than just typing with the onscreen keyboard. Maybe I\u2019m just out of practice because I swear I was pretty fast on my Blackberry Curve, but I actually found it to be slower and fussier than virtual keys. The headphone jack is a thoughtful touch, though.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There\u2019s a whole other launcher on the MindOne Pro dedicated to AI apps that I\u2019m not sure I get the point of. It offers a chatbot that allows you to switch between LLMs, as well as a notes app. Ikko being a Chinese company, I wondered how it would handle questions that the Chinese government might not like. I asked it if Hong Kong is part of China; it responded in Spanish for some reason and said that it couldn\u2019t help me with my question. It even comes with a global eSIM that you can toggle on \u2014 it\u2019s free to use with the AI launcher, but you need to pay to use it for messaging and the like. The connection is slow, at least in my neck of the woods in Seattle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Ikko<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

You can\u2019t deny that this is an appealing-looking phone.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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As charming as the concept is, I think a phone this shape was always going to have a tough time. Fighting to look at webpages and apps built for rectangles through a square-shaped window is just a losing battle. Maybe instead of a square-ish phone what the world really needs is a small, rectangular phone with modern bells and whistles. You hear that, phone makers? I am begging literally any company to make the iPhone Mini again with a USB-C charging port and a battery that doesn\u2019t die halfway through the day<\/a>. The MindOne isn\u2019t that phone, at least for me. Maybe it is for someone who\u2019s easy on the battery and isn\u2019t picky about camera quality. The rest of us will just have to keep looking.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Photography by Allison Johnson \/ The Verge<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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