From pen cell phones to telephone clocks: weird cell phones from 10 euros

Particularly unusual cell phones have the shape of a watch or a pen, sometimes they even bring a fan. We looked at strange mini-phones up to 30 euros.

Good smartphones cost from 250 euros (guide). But even under 100 euros you can get usable devices, as our list of best shows: smartphones up to 100 euros. If you can do without smart functions and mostly make calls or send SMS, we will show you in our buying advice: Emergency phones up to 20 euros are very inexpensive alternatives.

But there are also significantly more unusual feature phones – or cell phones – that surprise with really crazy functions. We looked at a popular cell phone watch that you can use to make a phone call after inserting a SIM card. The really crazy thing: the cell phone watch at the cheapest retailer costs just 7.50 euros including shipping.

Mobile phones in pen form are even more unusual. With them you can not only make calls, send SMS, listen to music and take pictures. There is also a pen hidden under a flap of our copy, and even a fan under another, to cool off in the heat.

Cellphone watches

The range of more or less smart watches with a SIM card slot is huge and cheap. At some retailers, including shipping costs, they are available from 7.50 euros. Again and again you stumble across the V8, which varies slightly in name depending on the dealer.

V8 cellphone watch

We have a V8, which is branded with the dealer name Sepver. However, it could also be from Mazhar, Sodial, Chenang or another Chinese seller. They are all identical in construction, the only real variation is in the colors.

At first, the V8 looks a bit chunky. At 13 mm it is relatively thick and at almost 9 mm the frame of the screen is clearly too wide to exude elegance. The tiny 1.2-inch display almost looks like a porthole. We have already seen this better with cheap smartwatches up to 50 euros (what they can and cannot do). The resolution of the touch-sensitive display with 240 × 240 pixels is quite decent – especially for this price.

The V8 is powered by a Mediatek MTK6261D, supported by 32 MB RAM. Sounds like a little, but it is enough to navigate through the menus reasonably smoothly – after all, there is no smartwatch or even smartphone operating system here. There is 32 MB of internal memory available, which can be expanded using a micro SD card. This becomes necessary, for example, when loading music onto the V8. Sound can either be played through the surprisingly loud built-in speakers, or you can use a Bluetooth headset or Bluetooth headphones. If you want to save money, you can find interesting products from 20 euros in our guide: The cheapest true wireless headphones.

Alternatively, you need the micro SD card to save the pictures taken with the integrated 0.3 megapixel front camera. The quality of the camera is poor, even for occasional snapshots its resolution is too low.

The V8 works with its own operating system, whose name or version cannot be found in the settings. After all, you can set the system language to German, among other things. If you want, you can set an alarm clock or timer, record sound, keep a calendar (synchronization functions are missing), count your steps and even monitoring sleep. Approximate tracking quality as with the devices on our leaderboard: Top 5 fitness trackers for sports and everyday use are not to be expected here.

To be able to use the SIM card, you first have to lift and remove the plastic back with your fingernail. The micro SD and SIM card slots are hidden behind the 280 mAh battery. The micro USB port for charging the smartwatch is hidden behind a rubber cover. This can only be solved with pointed fingernails. Use caution when using a metal object. We slipped slightly with a coffee spoon and immediately pulled an ugly scratch into the obviously not very high quality black lacquer. Anyone who uses the watch in everyday life must quickly expect signs of wear – but again: 7.50 euros.

The real challenge is to hit the tiny buttons on the small touch display, for example to set the time. Incidentally, this is always necessary when you remove the battery. It gets even worse when you try to write a text for an SMS. The virtual numeric keys with the stored letter are so small that their correct operation with normal-sized fingers is like gambling. The partially cut off buttons on the edge of the display are particularly bad. The V8 knows text-to-speech just as little as smart voice assistants or Internet-based messengers like WhatsApp.

Fortunately, the virtual numeric keypad when calling is significantly larger and more user-friendly. The voice output takes place via the loudspeaker on the back of the watch. Basically, it would be loud enough to understand the other person. However, if you wear the V8 in its usual place, namely on the wrist, the speaker is covered and the other person can hardly be understood. The microphone in our V8 is defective. That shouldn't come as a surprise with a 7.50 euro smartwatch, but it's still annoying and of course a valid reason for complaint. We then used a Bluetooth headset in the Review and had no further problems – in addition, speaking and hearing on the wrist is very impractical and strange to the people anyway.

Alternative cell phone watches

As an alternative to the V8, there is, for example, the SIM card watch Styledress Fitness Armband for 17 euros including shipping. With the dimensions of 53 × 45 × 13 mm, it is even a bit thicker from the V8. The rest of the hardware is very similar. The Mediatek MTK6261D, supported by 32 MB RAM, is also used here. The Styledress Fitness Smartwatch uses the unknown Nucleus OS as the operating system. According to the product images, it can even use Whatsapp and Facebook.

The A-Artist Bluetooth Smartwatch also uses the Mediatek MTK6261D with 32 MB RAM and 32 GB expandable memory. It measures 40.5 × 45.5 × 13 mm, accepts SIM cards and has a 1.22-inch display with a resolution of 240 × 240 pixels. In contrast to the other cell phone watches, however, the IP68 certification comes into play here. In addition, she tracks various trainings, including the training modes running, jogging, cycling, hiking, fitness, treadmill, basketball, tennis, climbing, badminton, yoga, soccer and dancing.

There are also cellphone watches especially for children. Its hardware is also similar in the important points to the other telephone clocks mentioned here. However, they are also colored colorfully and their software should particularly please children. This can be seen, for example, in watch faces with owls and a colorful background image with laughing children. In terms of quality, you shouldn't expect too much from the other watches presented here.

Pen phones

One thing is certain: the pen, often called K08, for making phone calls with an integrated fan definitely attracts attention. You can tell from the packaging that the Chinese developers wanted to design something very special here. The shredded cardboard box shines golden and shows a cheesy rainbow effect depending on the angle. It doesn't look good, but it stands out.

The pen itself is almost 17 cm long and has a diameter of 2.5 cm at its thickest point. That feels a bit too beefy when writing, we wouldn't want to write longer text with it. A cap protects the pen tip. If it should be empty, the golden packaging includes four additional tips.

A small fan is hidden under the cap on the head of the pen cell phone. Unfortunately, its quality is so poor that it fell apart after trying it out for the first time. With a bit of superglue, it now holds in place again. Nevertheless, this is without question a reason for complaint.

The non-touch-sensitive upright display measures almost 1 inch in diagonal, nothing is known about its exact resolution. However, it is not wide enough in many menus. Here the user sees only about seven letters and then has to wait until the font scrolls through in order to be able to read the rest of the line.

Among other things, a small circle sits below the display to navigate to the left, right, up and down. It takes a lot of tact to hit these keys, but it works. The number keys 0 to 9 and two keys for special characters are located below.

The camera sits on the back and takes pictures with 0.3 megapixels, or 80 × 160 pixels. The internal memory of 32 MB is enough for two pictures. If you want more, you can insert a micro SD card. You can also store music on it and then play it back on the loud speaker. Music playback via a Bluetooth device makes more sense.

Little is known about the built-in processor or about the RAM. However, the K08 is fast enough. After all, it doesn't have to be able to do much. There is no app store for third-party software.

The two SIM card slots of the dual SIM device are hidden behind the very large 2000 mAh battery, which is charged via a micro USB port. You can make calls with the K08 surprisingly well. We understand ours as clearly as we are understood. Sending SMS is not very fun. Thanks to the physical buttons, text input works much better than with a watch cell phone. However, from today's perspective, input using the number keys feels incredibly awkward.

Mini cell phones

The Simvalley Mobile RX-492 is a cell phone in credit card format. As a result, it even fits into the normal card pocket of a wallet (smart gadgets guide). A good place to always have your emergency phone with you.

The Cyrus cyr10041 is only slightly larger with the dimensions of 8.9 × 5.2 × 1 cm and about 50 g. The OLED display measures 2.5 cm in diagonal and has a resolution of 128 × 64 pixels. The really special thing is that this is an outdoor cell phone with IP68 certification. It can withstand a one-hour dive at a depth of up to 1.5 meters before water penetrates. According to the manufacturer, he should not be able to fall from a height of two meters – a real novelty with the low price and small form factor.

The entire technology of the Zanco Tiny T1 is in a 4.7 × 2.1 × 1.2 cm case, which weighs a delicate 13 g. Nevertheless, there is a monochrome OLED display with a diagonal of 1.2 cm space that can even display SMS messages with a resolution of 64 × 32 pixels. The T9 keyboard is fully functional. The Zanco Tiny T1 has a loudspeaker and a microphone for making calls in the 2G network, but it can also connect to headsets via Bluetooth. A Mediatek MTK6261D is used as the processor, which is supported by 32 MB of RAM.

Why the cell phone tiny is called Long-CZ J8 and not Short-CZ J8 will probably remain his secret. Because with 6.8 × 2.3 × 1.1 cm and 18 g, it is clearly one of the shortest mobile phones. It offers a 1.7 cm OLED display, micro USB, memory for 500 telephone numbers, a talk time of five hours and a standby time of four days. It also connects to a Bluetooth headset via Bluetooth, for example, to make calls or use the FM transmitter for FM reception. It comes in a black and a gold version and costs around 25 euros.

Conclusion

For 7.50 euros you can get a passable bottle of wine, a T-shirt from H&M, 750 g hack from a butcher – or a smartwatch directly from China. You feed it with a SIM card and you can use it to make calls, send SMS, take photos, play music and much more.

The pen, which can also make calls, costs around 30 euros. However, his fan gave up the ghost after only a short use. For the quality offered and the low utility value, we find 30 euros too much. Then again, hardly anyone will buy such a device because they really need it. Both the pen cell phone and the watch phone are gags, which are suitable as a small gift for nerds, for example. Here, however, we recommend spending 7.50 euros for the watch cell phone rather than 30 euros for the pen telephone with fan and excluding the topic of sustainability. If you want something useful at a reasonable price, you should rather use an emergency cell phone up to 20 euros (purchase advice).

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