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

We’re solely spending an increasing number of time observing our smartphones, and over the previous few years, tech firms have tried to supply salves to this very drawback they created. Apple and Google launched tools inside their respective cellular working programs to curb display screen time. Gadgets just like the Light Phone, designed to behave as a secondary phone with restricted options so you are not observing Instagram when you’re at a social gathering, are having fun with some reputation. This sort of digital-detox mentality can 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 most recent to hop on the development is The Boring Cellphone, introduced as we speak forward of Milan Design Week. The corporate manufacturing it’s Human Cellular Gadgets (HMD), higher often known as the corporate making Nokia-branded phones since 2017 due to a licensing partnership. The Boring Cellphone is cute, clear, and retrolicious. However it’s not a telephone you should purchase.

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

This function telephone (colloquially known as “dumb” telephones) can solely textual content and make telephone calls. There’s a digital camera, Twin SIM assist, 4G connectivity, a headphone jack, and a Micro USB port for charging. The battery can final every 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 fashionable devices from the Nineteen Eighties and ’90s. That has resulted in a clear flip telephone 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 penning this piece. It’s attractive.