AGM M11 Review: the dumbphone I wanted in 2026

I’ve been on a journey of replacing my smartphone with a dumber phone for nearly 2 years now and have tested a number of minimalist devices in that time (an advantage of them being so cheap and readily available). Devices such as AGM M7, Qin F22 Pro, and Unihertz Jelly Star. What they all had in common was that they were Android devices as I believed I needed some apps such as Telegram and Signal which are only available on Android (the Punkt MP02 purports to have Signal but it appears not to work a significant portion of the time).

These Android minimal devices are generally truly excellent and will be perfect for many, but for me they had a number of downsides. First of all was the battery life - the best I achieved from the Qin was 3-4 days but 1-2 was more likely depending on usage. Not bad compared to a smartphone but not what I wanted. Secondly is the fact that many Android apps do not support keypad navigation. The excellent TT9 app makes typing T9 a dream, and the C9 app gives you a virtual cursor in apps that need it, but this is a slow and unresponsive way of doing things - you spend 90% of the time just using the touchscreen which for me sort of defeats the purpose.

Finally, and the main reason for me, is the analysis paralysis of what apps to install. By default these phones either come with an app store or one can be installed easily and then almost all Android apps can be installed and used just fine, including the distracting ones such as TikTok and the like. While it is perfectly possible to set these phones up with the apps you want and then lock them down so you can’t easily install any others in moments of boredom, the decision of what to choose in the first place is actually more difficult than you think.

The hard part wasn’t finding a phone with fewer apps. It was deciding which apps I wanted to keep.

It’s very easy to make a legitimate case for almost all apps that you want. Apps like Telegram/Signal/Whatsapp seem a no brainer as they’re more or less just the modern form of SMS texting that you find on an actual dumbphone. Of course you’ll install Maps because you don’t carry an A to Z anymore, and 2-3 taxi apps because who rings cabs anymore? Garmin is a given so I don’t have to plug my watch in to sync, and then I may as well have Strava and Runna too. Lidl Plus makes sense, as do 2 factor authentication apps. Home Assistant to control the thermostat while away? Sure. And before you know it you’ve essentially transferred all of the apps from your smartphone, maybe with the exception of TikTok or Reddit.

Justify giving an Android dumbphone enough useful apps and before long you’ve just got a smartphone again.

A ‘true dumbphone’ like the AGM M11 fixes this for me - with a slight caveat we’ll discuss shortly - it comes with just calls, texts, and a number of utility apps such as calculator, clock/alarms, FM Radio/MP3 player, etc. This is very refreshing as it simply becomes a communication device. You don’t feel its presence in your pocket or bag, you don’t feel the urge to pull it out when in a queue for 30 seconds, or scroll through nothing at all instead of watching the film you put on the TV. For many of us the smartphone has become an extension of our selves, always present and in many cases, almost always glued to our hand.

The M11 is simply a tool - you pick it up to respond to a call or text then put it away again and it instantly leaves your thoughts.

The Device

You may remember dumbphones from the 2000s (or as we then called them, phones) getting smaller and smaller, and more and more stylish and interesting. Some of that is starting to come back as the dumbphone trend grows, but a lot of modern dumbphones are quite large, because they’re often tailored for older folks and/or because creating tiny sleek devices isn’t cost effective for the price and sales volume of dumbphones today. In short, the M11 is not a small phone; it measures up at 149.5mm x 68mm x 21mm and 225g. The footprint and weight are actually not dissimilar to a Pixel 11. The thickness is the main differentiating factor at 2-3x the thickness of a modern smartphone. I found it can feel a little bulky in men’s trouser pockets so I prefer to carry it in a sling bag; however the feel in the hand is nice and being able to use it one handed without reaching to the top of the screen is very refreshing compared to modern smartphones.

The M11 is thick by modern smartphone standards, but incredibly rugged - and still easy to use one handed.

It’s a fully plastic build but feels well built and substantial. The buttons are a very pleasing feeling rubber: nice and clicky and definite in their action. The D-Pad is the only slight downside here - it can be easy to click the centre button while trying to hit a direction. With some practice this will become less of an issue but initially you’ll be frustrated. It is IP68/IP69K rated which means it can withstand dust/grime and not just submersion but high pressure jets of warm water - not many phones advertise surviving a run through the dishwasher. Similarly it’s very rugged and I’m not concerned if it falls on the floor.

Reception is very good for me in the UK. I simply put my SIM in one of the two SIM slots and it instantly logged onto Vodafone’s 4G network and picked up both VoLTE (essential for making calls once 2G is shut down in ~5 years) and HD calling - calls sound fantastic. WiFi Hotspot was a major selling point for me over other dumbphones and this works fine, if a bit slow, but fast enough for browsing and probably video calls.

A major selling point of the phone is the huge (for a dumbphone) 4000mAh removable battery. Depending on your usage, this should easily last you 1-3 weeks. Standby is incredible, just losing a couple of percent over a 24h period. Basic screen-on tasks like texting use a little more. Extended calls, and WiFi hotspot drain the battery a lot faster. And of course you could just pop out a dead battery and replace with a charged one for another week or so of usage. It charges via USB C behind a waterproof flap, however it does not support USB PD or fast charging, indeed I can’t get it to charge from a C to C cable at all - only an A to C cable (included in the box along with a wall adapter). Not a huge issue considering how long the battery lasts. It also supports reverse charging using the built in lanyard USB C cable at the top - you simply plug this into a device such as earbuds or a Garmin watch and turn on reverse charging and it juices them up, which works fantastically. If the lanyard cable ever breaks it also supports reverse charging out of the USB C port.

A removable 4000mAh battery changes the rhythm of using the phone: you think in weeks rather than hours.

The operating system is beautifully simple; it is very reminiscent of phone operating systems from the 2000s. It shuts down and boots up nearly instantly (indeed it even includes auto off/auto on timers if you want to shut your phone down at night like the old days). Once booted you get a menu of your tools and that’s it. Customisation is limited but it’s not really needed. Some settings like Ringtones or turning off keypad sounds are a little hidden (you have to edit your current sound profile) but overall it only takes about 10 minutes to set up as there isn’t much to change. SMS is non-threaded which is a blast from the past, so you won’t be having serious back and forth texting battles on here, but it works just fine. The T9 keyboard is fantastic - it’s not quite as good as the TT9 app for Android but nearly there, and you can switch to ABC mode for passwords and unknown words.

The elephant in the room is staring at you when you open the Menu - an icon called Cloud Phone. In here you then see some very unexpected app icons: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Gemini, TikTok. These are incredibly simplified versions of those apps, running in the cloud. They cannot currently be removed (they are not really ‘on’ the phone, these are essentially links/bookmarks) or blocked from use, so this could be a deal breaker for you if you don’t want access to these apps at all. For me it’s not a big deal because they’re so painful to use that I’m not likely to. Many of them require logging in and I’m not about to type my Google account credentials using abc to doomscroll YouTube at a snails pace on a tiny screen. TikTok is the only one that displays content while logged out but it takes seconds to load a video, there are no comments, and I can’t see a way to log in so you just get given the default unpersonalised slop feed: I just can’t see it being in any way addictive. I simply ignore these app icons completely. There are some useful apps in here such as Weather, News, Maps (no GPS to show you where you are, just a scrollable map but could get you out of trouble), Podcasts etc. It’s also completely possible to write your own apps (more on this in a future article) if you really need a certain feature. For the most part I think the Cloud Phone is a positive addition - it adds value without making social media slop too attractive or accessible, though an option to completely remove those apps would certainly be welcome.

The Cloud Phone is a compromise: useful tools are one click away, but so are neutered versions of the apps I left behind.

Verdict

If you’re switching from a smartphone, the AGM M11 will be incredibly restrictive and you’ll have to relearn how to live life to some extent, but you may well find it incredibly freeing. If you’ve already dabbled with removing apps, limiting social media, finding analogue alternatives and/or transitioned to an Android based dumbphone already, you may find the M11 easier to get used to.

For me the tool-like nature of it makes it the first minimalist phone I’ve used that feels easy to live with rather than merely restrictive.

It’s simply a phone for communicating with, not a smartphone pretending to be as such, and thus there’s no temptation to use it as a smartphone.

It isn’t a phone for everyone, but if you want a device that mostly disappears until you need it, the M11 is an unusually convincing option.