Melrose S9 is a tiny Android phone. It has 2.4″ display and 3G connectivity. Other than these, nothing else is really impressive about this phone. I don’t think many people would get this phone if it is not because of its size, given that Melrose is a rather unknown brand from China with essentially no reputation.

Melrose S9 is powered by MT6572 Dual Core 1.2GHz processor, 512MB RAM, 4GB ROM, 1050 mAh battery and Android 4.4. It has 2.4 inch 432 x 240 multi-touch screen, 2 MP camera and the usual WiFi, Bluetooth, micro SD charging. It supports TF card up to 16 GB, and the phone I get is already bundled with 16 GB TF, which I have no idea where and how they install the card, but I checked from Android Settings app and it’s there. In the box, we get the phone (obviously), a micro USB charging cable, a shady-looking charger (which I will not use even if someone pays me to), a very ugly wired earphones, screen protector, silicon case, a package of screwdriver and 2 backup screws to open the SIM card slot. Did I mention that this thing is small? It measures just 85 x 42 x 10 mm.

Setting up Melrose S9 is not difficult. All we need to do us pressing a button to turn it on. Android 4.4 appears, connect to WiFi and I get Internet connection. We can go to Google Play and basically download most apps there, if we could accept how small it will appear in 2.4″ screen. Typing in this tiny screen was so intimidating, Strangely, I did better than what I initially thought it would be. Most keys are pressed correctly. Noticed that some keys near the edges of the screen would needs few attempts to get it right. Changing to landscape orientation helps a bit with typing. Thanks to Google Play, I managed to install and run Facebook app, WhatsApp, Viber, BBM, some book readers and even VLC. I managed to watch a short movie. It wasn’t a comfortable experience with such a small screen, but the fact that it plays at all shows that the processor is at least half-decent. Navigating through Facebook app is somewhat tricky, but doable. WhatsApp and other messaging apps are usable.

Next, I attempted to put in my SIM card. The guide says I need to detach the weird cover using the included screwdriver. Immediately I lost the ultra tiny screw. I quickly understand why they include 2 backup screws. The SIM card is supposed to be put into the slot, then we push the SIM card a bit and a mechanism should hold the SIM card in place. At least that’s what they show in their video. In my unit, the SIM card always pop back out everytime I push it in. Already tried using finger nail, also tried using the help of my phone’s SIM card eject tool. After a few attempts, I figured out that holding the SIM inside while continuously using my finger nail to push it to the right spot would get my SIM card detected and my operator shown. However, as soon as I move my finger which holding the SIM card, it pops back out and I lost operator connectivity. So at least the GSM and 3G features are working, it’s just the SIM card slot that is broken. I decided to put back the cover and reinstall the screw without even putting a SIM card inside. I figured I could probably use this WiFi-enabled tiny screen for another purpose. Oh, and I found the missing screw an hour later by stepping on it accidentally.

So I continued to use this “phone” as something other than phone. I found it interesting to download and install many apps from Google Play and see how it looks in the small screen. Of course, since my storage is quite limited, I needed to delete those apps soon after playing around a little bit.

Then there was trouble. Just 3 days later, I turned it on in the morning, still works. I went to do some morning activities, leaving the phone on my desk, nicely, fully charged. When I got back, the phone is off, and no matter what I did, it never turned on again. I tried everything, from charging it using different sets of cables and chargers, trying to put SIM card again, nothing works. My impressive tiny phone turned into useless dead brick just in 3 days. I reached to my seller and they are still finding excuses until today, asking me to try various things that I had already did and failed to restore some life in my phone. Let’s hope they would finally admit their product is faulty and refund me the money.

My conclusion couldn’t be more obvious: stay away from this product. Of course there is always a chance that it’s just my unit that’s faulty. But I figured it’s probably not worth the risk, given that the only selling point of this phone is its size. Nothing else is impressive from this low-end phone. And don’t forget how it stopped working after just 3 days.