The New Hot Handset Is a Cute and Transparent Dumb Phone You Can’t Buy Leave a comment

We’re solely spending increasingly time observing our smartphones, and over the previous few years, tech firms have tried to supply salves to this very downside they created. Apple and Google launched tools inside their respective cell working techniques to curb display time. Gadgets just like the Light Phone, designed to behave as a secondary phone with restricted options so you are not observing Instagram if you’re at a social gathering, are having fun with some recognition. This sort of digital-detox mentality can also be behind a wave of AI-powered devices just like the Humane Ai Pin, which guarantees to dump some smartphone-native duties to voice controls on a screenless interface.

The newest to hop on the development is The Boring Telephone, introduced in the present day forward of Milan Design Week. The corporate manufacturing it’s Human Cell Gadgets (HMD), higher often called the corporate making Nokia-branded phones since 2017 because of a licensing partnership. The Boring Telephone is cute, clear, and retrolicious. However it isn’t a cellphone you should buy.

At Mobile World Congress in February 2024, the Finnish firm introduced it was leaning in on the Human Cell Gadgets branding versus the acronym HMD and that it could broaden its scope by collaborating with different manufacturers exterior of Nokia as a white-label cellphone producer. The massive announcement on the time was the Barbie flip cellphone—stemming from a partnership with Mattel—coming this summer time. We don’t have any new particulars about that gadget, however The Boring Telephone hails from a collaboration with Heineken (sure, the beer model) and style model Bodega.

This characteristic cellphone (colloquially known as “dumb” telephones) can solely textual content and make cellphone calls. There’s a digital camera, Twin SIM help, 4G connectivity, a headphone jack, and a Micro USB port for charging. The battery can final per week in standby time, however there are not any apps. Besides Snake. Sure, you’ll be able to play Snake on this gadget.

Bodega is behind the design, citing the rise of “Newtro” (new and retro) as inspiration with Gen Z—the modernization of common devices from the Eighties and ’90s. That has resulted in a clear flip cellphone with holographic stickers and inexperienced accents in a nod to the Heineken partnership. Truthfully, the look of this handset is half the rationale I’m scripting this piece. It’s attractive.