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

We’re solely spending an increasing number of time looking at our smartphones, and over the previous few years, tech corporations have tried to supply salves to this very downside they created. Apple and Google launched instruments inside their respective cellular working techniques to curb display screen time. Units just like the Gentle Cellphone, designed to behave as a secondary telephone with restricted options so you are not looking at Instagram while you’re at a social gathering, are having fun with some recognition. 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 newest to hop on the development is The Boring Cellphone, introduced at present forward of Milan Design Week. The corporate manufacturing it’s Human Cell Units (HMD), higher often known as the corporate making Nokia-branded telephones since 2017 because of a licensing partnership. The Boring Cellphone is cute, clear, and retrolicious. However it isn’t a telephone you should buy.

At Cell World Congress in February 2024, the Finnish firm introduced it was leaning in on the Human Cell Units 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 telephone—stemming from a partnership with Mattel—coming this summer season. We don’t have any new particulars about that gadget, however The Boring Cellphone hails from a collaboration with Heineken (sure, the beer model) and vogue model Bodega.

This characteristic telephone (colloquially known as “dumb” telephones) can solely textual content and make telephone 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 aren’t any apps. Besides Snake. Sure, you possibly can 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 telephone with holographic stickers and inexperienced accents in a nod to the Heineken partnership. Actually, the look of this handset is half the explanation I’m scripting this piece. It’s attractive.