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That battery: To no one's surprise, squeezing a 6,000mAh battery into the Titan means it'll run for a long time before needing to be plugged in again. Your mileage will obviously vary depending on how hard you push this thing, but in the nearly two weeks I've had the Titan in my possession, I've only had to plug it in once. (Granted, I wasn't using it super-heavily.) Not having to worry about whether the phone I'm using will die soon leads to a peace of mind that almost completely offsets the phone's egregiously chunky body.


Clean-ish Android: Unlike the current crop of Android-powered BlackBerrys, the Titan comes loaded with a lightly tweaked build of Android 9.0 Pie. That's almost certainly because Unihertz didn't have to (or want to) spend any extra time hardening the underlying OS for privacy the way BlackBerry/TCL do now. And people who are really concerned about device security should probably still invest in something like a Key2. That said, props to Unihertz for mostly leaving Android Pie alone here.

The only real additions of note are a third-party keyboard designed to work in tandem with the physical one, a truly useless Notes app that caps text at 1,500 characters, and the Toolbox. That's where you'll find tiny apps like, uh, the compass, bubble level, protractor and plumb bob. I've never used a smartphone to help with home renovation projects, but if I did, the Titan would probably be the device I turned to.


Design: Like I said, this phone really isn't meant for people bound to a desk all day. Because of that, the Titan looks and feels like a BlackBerry Passport wearing a heavy suit of armor. For people who drop their phones constantly, or who frequently work out in the field, this ruggedized bulk serves as a valuable insurance policy. For a person who writes things in an open-floor plan office dotted with CB2 conference tables, it's total overkill.

It's not all bad, though: The Titan still squeezes into my pockets without too much drama, and it's nice knowing I could treat the thing like garbage and not have to worry about destroying the screen or drowning it in a pool. The phone's heft does means it's difficult to use with one hand, but c'mon — the Titan has a physical QWERTY keyboard. If you actually bought one of these, you probably knew exactly what you were getting into.


The square screen: Titan owners will spend a lot of time looking at this square, 4.5-inch display running at 1,440x1,440, and it's not half-bad. (In case you were curious, the screen's size and resolution are almost identical to the BlackBerry Passport.) It's plenty bright for prolonged outdoor use, and the color reproduction is nothing to sneeze at either. It's no Dynamic OLED, but what did you expect? The bigger concern here is that the modern mobile web, not to mention most apps, expect longer, taller screens. Whether you're skimming through Engadget or poking around on Instagram, expect to do a lot of scrolling.



The cameras: If you really care about camera performance and don't want to drop a crazy amount of money on a phone, buy a Pixel 3a and be done with it. The Titan simply can't compete, not that it's really supposed to. Still, you can get some solid-looking photos out of the Titan from time-to-time: some of shots I captured offered nice detail and occasionally dramatic colors, and they were nice enough that I could post them to Instagram or Facebook without worrying too much. The camera does, however, totally bomb in low light — expect lots of blur and grain, to the point where I deleted most of those dark shots on sight. Meanwhile, the 8MP front-facing camera... well, it exists, and it will take selfies. Just not very good ones.

Guys what's your take on this?