we just spend money We’re spending more and more time staring at our smartphones, and over the past few years, tech companies have tried to provide solutions to the problem they’ve created. Apple and Google have introduced tools in their respective mobile operating systems to limit screen time. Devices like the Light Phone are popular and designed to serve as secondary phones with limited functionality so you’re not staring at Instagram during social gatherings. This digital detox mentality is also behind the wave of AI-driven gadgets, like the Humane Ai Pin, which promises to offload some native smartphone tasks to voice control on a screen-less interface.
The latest trendy phone is The Boring Phone, launched today ahead of Milan Design Week. The company making the product is Human Mobile Devices (HMD), which has been producing Nokia-branded phones since 2017 thanks to a licensing partnership. Boring Phone is cute, transparent, and retro. But this isn’t a phone you can buy.
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At Mobile World Congress in February 2024, the Finnish company announced that it was leaning towards using the Human Mobile Devices brand instead of the abbreviation HMD and would be working as a white-label handset manufacturer by partnering with brands other than Nokia. expand its scope. The biggest announcement at the time was a partnership with Mattel to launch a Barbie flip phone, which will be available this summer. We don’t have any new details about the device, but The Boring Phone is a collaboration with Heineken (yes, the beer brand) and fashion brand Bodega.
This kind of feature phone (commonly known as “dumb phone”) can only send text messages and make calls. There’s a camera, dual-SIM support, 4G connectivity, a headphone jack and a Micro USB port for charging. The battery’s standby time lasts a week, but without apps. Except snakes. Yes, you can play Snake on this gadget.
Bodega, the man behind the design, cites the rise of “Newtro,” the modernization of popular electronics in the 1980s and 1990s, as Gen Z’s inspiration. The result is a transparent flip phone with holographic stickers and green accents as a nod to Heineken partners. Honestly, the look of this phone is half the reason I’m writing this article. beautiful.