It’s a bad time and maybe also a great time to make a new smartphone.
Brennan Jordan and Austin Boer are two-thirds of the trio behind the Enough Phone, a small phone that will run your choice of stock Android or the minimalist OdysseyOS. They’re currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, and just a day after launching, the project is over halfway to its $250,000 goal.
The Enough Phone’s target specifications include a 5.3-inch display, 3,500mAh user-replaceable battery, MediaTek Dimensity 7500 chipset, a 50-megapixel Sony sensor in the rear camera, and 8GB of RAM. The dimensions listed on the Kickstarter page suggest an iPhone Mini-ish size; Jordan and Boer also happen to be former iPhone Mini users themselves.
The two of them cofounded a software startup called Sleke, which sells refurbished phones loaded with OdysseyOS, their minimalist, low-distraction version of Android. Putting the software on existing phones is a win for sustainability, but it also helps them get their software to market faster, Boer tells me. The pair offers small batches of Pixel 8 and 9 phones right now through the Sleke website, but the large devices didn’t feel quite right to some customers.
“One of the biggest things that we get is, ‘I don’t want this large of a phone for a minimal operating system,’” says Boer. They’d wanted to make a small phone, and the opportunity arrived when Will Stults approached them about creating one. Stults operates an online store for non-smartphones called Dumbwireless. He also brings familiarity with the smartphone manufacturing process to the mix thanks to some previous work with a “big” phone brand.
But hardware is hard in the best of times, and 2026 has proven extremely challenging for phone companies big and small. The chip shortage has driven prices up and made RAM scarce. Jordan and Boer are feeling the pressures, particularly around pricing. The Kickstarter campaign offers some discounts for early backers, but after that the Enough Phone will sell for $599. “We don’t want to be charging as much as we are,” says Boer, “but as a startup you can only do so much.” They’re a self-funded operation and want to keep it that way, he says, so they can choose their own priorities. Outside funding would change the dynamic and might put pressure on them to shorten their promised five years of software support or cut other costs.
As it stands, the project is on schedule. According to the Kickstarter page, it’s in the production tooling phase, with plans to ship phones to customers in May 2027 — though a footnote says that the RAM shortage’s “ripple effects across the entire electronics manufacturing industry” could still throw a wrench in the works.
Boer sees this gap as an opportunity, even in the midst of a global RAM crisis. “Nobody was doing it, and we’re kind of seeing why — because it’s not the ideal time to start. But that also kind of makes it the ideal time to start, because no one else is doing it,” he says. “Let’s just do it ourselves.” Enough is enough. At least that’s what they’re hoping.