Living with Smartisan Phone

A long time ago I had no idea who Luo Yonghao was, yet plenty of my classmates were obsessed with him.

They all thought he was amazing, so I watched his talks about idealism and startup history too, and figured yeah, the guy really is something. At least he isn’t the type who only cares about profit, and that alone is worth a lot.

Then he decided to make phones and started boasting online every day. It annoyed me, but I could sort of see what he was up to.

He just wanted marketing and eyeballs. He just picked a fairly low-brow way to get them. I wrote about this a long time ago.

I was kind of itching to try the Smartisan T1, but I really hate physical buttons, so I never pulled the trigger.

This time, with the Nut, I thought it over… figured worst case I could just replace my old Meizu M1 Note, so I went for it.

Nut unboxings are everywhere, and better ones than mine are everywhere too, so I won’t repeat all that. I’ll just say the phone really is pretty. When I pulled it out at work, both the older ladies and the young women fell for it at first sight. However much you so-called enthusiasts mock the look as a hot water bottle, it genuinely catches the eyes of those women you dismiss as shallow. Being able to do that is exactly what you “electricians” lack.

Unlocking and activating the Nut isn’t a hassle. As early Smartisan said, Smartian OS itself doesn’t support wallpapers, only lock-screen wallpapers, and everything looks quite beautiful.

The nine-grid launcher everyone’s so proud of is honestly nothing special in use. I just personally like the little cosmetic touches, like the floating feel when each tile moves. It’s cheap to do and costs nothing, sure, but it genuinely gives you a bit of happiness and satisfaction. Maybe that’s Luo Yonghao’s knack for reading people.

The Nut is just too refined. In the hand, both feel and weight are noticeably better than the Meizu M1 Note next to it. In redrawing menus and icons, Smartian OS put far more care than Flyme OS. I won’t even mention that hideous-as-hell Hangouts icon in Flyme OS…

The Nut comes with a Google service package preinstalled, so you can install circumvention tools and the whole Google family. And it’s a bit better than Flyme OS: Flyme OS often fails to receive messages, while the Nut doesn’t, and the Nut’s beautiful Chinese font looks great on Google+ too.

The Nut ships with a browser modified from Chrome. I don’t like it, but the thing can’t be uninstalled. Plenty of the software preinstalled on the Nut can be removed; this one genuinely can’t. They call it a system app, though it doesn’t stop you from installing Firefox and setting it as default.

Once I had it in hand, I found the Nut so refined. The camera isn’t great, but it’s about on par with the Nexus 9—and for someone like me who can shoot phone-quality photos even with an RX100 M3, a better camera wouldn’t help anyway. Combined with Smartian OS’s meticulous polish, it’s practically an heir to iOS, and one of the skeuomorphic sort at that.

Stroking the Nut’s back shell, the smooth feel nearly gave my brain an orgasm.

But I quickly came back to my senses, quietly opened the JD preorder page, and chose to return it.

The return process was quick. The next day the JD guy came downstairs to my place. After I handed over the almost brand-new phone, he looked a bit baffled.

“You barely used this phone at all, why return it?”

“Oh, bought it and wasn’t satisfied.”

“What weren’t you satisfied with?”

“Too laggy.”

“Huh? The SIM card won’t go in?”

“No, the performance isn’t enough in use. The phone is too slow. One swipe and it stutters.”

“Is it really that bad?”

So I just took out the phone, opened the interface, found Sina Weibo, and swiped once. The whole screen instantly started stuttering. I locked the phone, went to the unlock screen, swiped up to unlock again, and the entire unlock screen slid out like a slideshow.

The guy just shook his head.

“See, like that.”

“This phone really isn’t much. Shame, it’s so pretty.”

“Their slogan is even ‘pretty unlike a powerhouse.’”

“What?” The guy laughed. “This is just a pretty-faced waste. Pretty means it’s not a powerhouse.”

Watching the guy’s back as he left, I mulled over Luo Yonghao’s words at the launch event: smooth unlike an Android phone.

I pulled out my Nexus 6 and rubbed it a couple of times, then sighed.

I think I do rather admire Old Luo. Between pretty and powerful, he’s at least nailed pretty.

But power isn’t so easy. Let’s see which year and month he manages it.