Be Safe and Lightweight with a Mini Mobile Phone

September 13, 2015 by Jackie Maclean-Martin
No comments

352-1-1 (1)On entering this magical world of Ultra running you learn that weight is important and imperative when you think of the number of the strides you’ll be covering in an event. These days everything is ultralight and now it’s turned to your mobile phone as well. In most trail races participants must carry a fully charged mobile phone with your emergency numbers pre programmed. However our mobile phones come in all shapes and sizes and weights.

I had heard about a mini size mobile phone the size of three credit cards placed back to back which weighed relatively nothing (29g). I wanted to find out more. A quick search on the web (Amazon and others) I ordered a mini portable phone for the extraordinary price of 29 euros (roughly £23.00) and it was delivered in 24 hours. It was worth a try I thought. Because my event was so well organised I knew that if the phone failed, I was always in easy reach of emergency assistance I thought I’d give the phone a try on race day.

My iphone 5 with case weighed in at 144g, the mini mobile phone weighed only 29g !!!!4-8mm-Ultra-Thin-AIEK-M5-card-mobile-phone-mini-pocket-students-personality-children-phone-the

Although the phone can take your own sim card, I wanted a separate pre paid sim card that I can use when training and on race day. The phone made by AEKU, exceeded all expectations. Although it took a while to get used to typing on the small key pad, no swiping or apps here, going back to basics was quite fun. The big test was reception and this didn’t disappoint. I called Neil a few times during my race just to check in and the reception was amazing, no matter where I was on the mountain the clarity was fantastic and even better than my iphone in some respects. The only downside is that you cannot take photos, it’s only for calls and texts but let’s be honest, unless you’re a sponsored athlete you’re unlikely going to need to document your journey in a multimedia format!

I’m going to rename this my ‘Escape’ phone, I’ll give the number out to people on a ‘need to know’ basis but sometimes you need a few hours to yourself, to fall off the grid and recharge yourself not just your phone. It’s well worth a look.

Jackie Maclean-Martin
Latest posts by Jackie Maclean-Martin (see all)