Unplugged Reviews 

I got extremely tired of being bombarded by precisely targeted advertising I am sure came from my old Android/Samsung phone and downloaded apps. I walked around my yard looking at some brown spots and the next day I was getting ads for lawn services. Ugh. I bought an Unplugged phone and a Google Pixel 8 Pro with Graphene OS installed and concurrently ran a prepaid service through both of them. Bottom line: after three months of testing, I went with the Unplugged UP01 phone. Why? Speed and convenience. I use my phone like 90+ percent of the population. While the Pixel/Graphene OS phone I am sure was a very secure and private device, I need the convenience and speed of apps. The UP01 excels at this and has nearly every app in it's own app store. You get real-time feedback of app trackers blocked and who the culprits are that you just don't get with the Graphene device. I'm not a phone expert and can't tell you the hardware the UP phone runs, but I can absolutely tell you it is plenty snappy for me. No lag ever. If you want to use three different user profiles in Graphene for added security and sign into your banking, social media sites, etc. via a browser, Graphene might be for you. You don't get any tracker feedback and you have to trust the device is not leaking data. If you want to click on your banking or other app and know that the phone is blocking the app's embedded trackers, go with the UP phone. I like their mission/vision, and support them fully. I liked the Graphene device, but you actually have to have more blind trust that it's not leaking after you download apps and browse the web (unless you are a sophisticated user). I use their no logs VPN and email aggregator without concern. Their annual subscription fee after the first free year is a small price to pay for big tech privacy. I've used their AI support about a dozen times with concerns about apps or feedback from the firewall and all but one time their AI resolved my issue; the other time required a human, but no big deal - they were fast. You also get frequent updates pushed out. Graphene required more hands on for updates and depending if you sideloaded apps, you might have to go hunting for updates that were not automatic. In short, you could buy a device that supports Graphene OS installation from Google (and soon the Peoples Republic of China's Motorola), which directly financially supports the Privacy Prince of Darkness, or you can buy a phone from a small company that doesn't collect and sell your data and whose specified mission is big tech privacy and security. BTW, I don't get anything out of this review. I bought the UP01 phone and don't regret it at all.

IF you do not have a telephone number, THEN your phone and customer service need to be on point. The phone is littered with hardware and or software bugs as of Thu Apr 2, 2026. They do not even offer live chat. Email support takes days to reply, if at all. This lack of customer service is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. I will sue this company in federal court for false advertising and grievances if I do not receive a full and prompt refund.

Everything you try to do on this piece of crap is a hassle. It is in no way user friendly. Most apps are not available and 99% of the ones that are allowed either do not ever work, or they work until there is an update and the update is not allowed so then the app stops working. Hope you don’t need immediate help because help requests take 12-48 hours and it comes via email, not realtime chat. Ridiculous. The phone is horribly slow to process everything and there are constant crashes from apps AND the UI itself. It drops calls, sends calls directly to voicemail when you have a 5x connection. It regularly drops incoming and outgoing text messages even with a 5x connection. It receives texts HOURS after they were sent even with a 5x connection and it is sitting beside another device with the same connection that has 0 issues. Expecting messages from a group is pointless. By the time you receive 14 texts in a flood of incoming messages from 1 to 3 hours ago all at once the conversation has moved on and you just missed it. Notifications arrive and block the keypad for WAY too long and cannot be swiped aside. If you swipe it off it comes right back and resets so the more you try to move it out of the way the longer it persists and that is at the shortest time you can set it. If you want to miss out on important calls, miss messages, get left out of group conversations, basically lose contact with friends and family and more, get an unplugged phone. It is by far the worst purchase I have ever made. I am currently in the process of backing up contacts so I can get rid of this POS phone TODAY! Edit: I forgot to mention that the camera is simply awful. I replaced it with a new iphone. Once my new phone was up and running, it had 132 unanswered messages that had not come through on the Up phone. I discovered that none of the messages I sent to my groups had gone through. Terrible phone.

I didn't read abt the scam reviews in multiple places until after I had bought and returned the phone. Just so consumers are aware u get charged $130 for even turning ON the phone. So how the h*ll am I suppose to know if I'd want to use it without opening it??? And mind u I lightly browsed thru the interface and checked the camera. I didn't even put in my SIM or sign into anything. The CAMERA let me say if u like taking photos there's no way you'd be able to use this phone. The photo quality is incomparable to most phones people r using. The photo quality is exactly the same from a $200 phone. The phone is also max size and quite thick. Basically don't bother with this phone unless all u care abt is calling/texting. But I can't tell u if even that works. I feel like I was deceived by the marketing and the people that backed/promoted this.

This company is trash and so is the phone. We purchased the phone after hearing about it on the Shawn Ryan show. I got the phone and within two hours came to the realization that the user interface sucks and is stuck in the 1980's. The camera is terrible and from the early 2000's. Some people were getting my texts and some people were not making this phone highly unreliable. We contacted customer support for a refund and it has taken 10 days to resolve the return. We were also notified of a $130 restocking fee for the one opened phone. $130!!!!!!!! My wife has disputed this and the rep comes back with a dissertation on why the restocking fee is so high, and also says she has no proof as to whether or not we initiated the return before 14 days, even though the first responder to our return said that we are within the 14 days. Bottom line is yeah the phone may be private but this is just another money grab company with no respect for their customers, and a garbage product. Stay away!