Google TIQ Mini M5 4G Black 32GB Review

This is a novelty, not a smartphone. Buy it only if your dream phone fits in an Altoids tin. For everyone else, a used iPhone SE is a vastly better tiny phone.

Let's be real: the TIQ MINI M5 is a weird little phone. It's a tiny, 2.8-inch Android device that looks like it escaped from 2010, and the one thing you need to know is that it's not for you. It's not for most people. This is a hyper-niche product for someone who desperately wants a small, simple, and cheap 4G phone that runs the Google Play Store. If you're looking for a normal smartphone experience, turn around now.

The performance score is one of the worst we've seen, and that's exactly what you'd expect from a phone with 3GB of RAM and an unknown processor. It lags behind most modern apps. The surprise, honestly, is that it scores as high as it does in 'social proof' and 'feature' percentiles. That tells us the people who buy this thing know exactly what they're getting—a basic tool—and they're happy with it. It's not trying to be fast.

At $140, it's cheap. At $250, it's a rip-off. The price swings wildly by $110 depending on the vendor, so shop carefully. If you need this exact form factor with modern Android, the $140 price tag makes it a justifiable, specialized tool. For anyone else, it's terrible value because you can get a much more capable used or budget phone for the same money.

Don't even compare this to a Samsung Galaxy or Google Pixel. That's like comparing a moped to a sedan. The real question is: why buy this instead of a refurbished iPhone SE (1st or 2nd gen) or a Motorola Moto G? An old iPhone SE gives you a better small-form-factor experience with vastly superior performance and app support. A modern Moto G gives you a decent big screen and solid performance for similar money. The TIQ MINI M5 only wins if your top priority is 'smaller than an iPhone SE' and 'has Google Play.'

If you're looking for a primary smartphone, this isn't it. Go get a refurbished Pixel or a Motorola Moto G instead. Also skip it if you have aging eyesight—reading on that screen is tough. This is a secondary or specialty device, period.

We can only recommend the TIQ MINI M5 to a very specific person: someone who needs the absolute smallest possible Android phone that still gets 4G and can run basic apps like Maps or WhatsApp. Think of it as a modern 'dumb phone' that isn't actually dumb. For 99% of people looking for a phone under $250, there are dramatically better options that don't require squinting.