3 hours ago
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The Light Flip successful red.
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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways
- Light conscionable announced the Light Flip -- a minimalist flip telephone for $299.
- It has a somewhat lower-end physique compared to the Light Phone 3, but aims for a thoughtful plan and striking colors.
- It comes with a nine-month "Flip Your Life" programme that helps users hole to ditch their smartphones for good.
Light, the institution that made the "premium dumbphone", conscionable announced the latest instrumentality to its lineup: the Light Flip, a $299 flip telephone with the aforesaid minimal aesthetic but with trade-offs successful hardware, build, and a little complaint astatine $39 a month.
The Brooklyn-based company's halfway ethos remains the same: a wholly minimalist UI, nary email, nary apps, and constricted features -- adjacent little than the Light Phone 3, which was already spare. The effect is simply a unsocial instrumentality successful chaotic colors designed solely for making calls and sending texts (if you tin brave the T9 keyboard).
Flip your life
I talked to Light's 2 co-founders, Joe Hollier and Kaiwei Tang up of the announcement, and they were wide astir the intended demographic: 18-30-year-olds who privation retired of the smartphone ecosystem. Working with a consultancy during development, Tang said that 52% of Gen Z and Millennial consumers would see utilizing a non-smartphone -- a statistic that throws the doorway wide unfastened for merchandise development.
Not being capable to entree societal media, news, oregon email connected your telephone is simply a perchance freeing imaginable for the millions of radical who consciousness trapped successful endless doomscrolling oregon notification hell. But the modern smartphone has embedded itself into our lives truthful thoroughly, it requires immoderate existent dedication to marque it sustainable.
The daze of going from an iPhone to thing similar the Light Flip tin beryllium truthful great, it sends users backmost to the acheronian broadside aft a substance of weeks oregon months. "It's not conscionable a antithetic brace of shoes, it's a implicit manner change," Hollier said. In that sense, Light saw an opportunity: helping its users marque the transition, and physique into the instrumentality itself.
With the Light Flip 3 disposable for pre-order now, buyers besides person the prime to enroll successful Light's ain "digital audit" preparedness programme called Flip Your Life, which aims to hole users to ditch their smartphone successful the 9 months earlier the merchandise really ships (yes, the Light Flip is expected to go disposable successful April 2027).
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"You don't conscionable bargain a telephone from us, we assistance you marque the transition," Tang said of the program. Users tin link successful a integer community, stock vulnerabilities, tips and tricks to divest successful their smartphones, and acclimatize to reordering their integer lives -- an wholly caller societal constituent that accompanies the phones' acquisition and, Light hopes, keeps radical connected them. Considering it'll beryllium a hold earlier anyone really has the Light Flip successful hand, there's much than capable clip to engage.
Minimal... but more-so
The different crushed for the Light Flip is to service the introduction level minimalist telephone market, with an affordable $299 terms and $39/month payment. In presumption of trade-offs, archetypal of all, the physique is made of plastic, and determination is nary touchscreen: the 2.8-inch matte solid OLED connected the Light Flip has a 480 x 640 solution and is navigated solely by a D-pad, relation buttons, a Home fastener connected the close side, and measurement up and down.
The telephone measures 110mm by 58mm by 19mm (folded) and weighs 160 grams, notably much than the 124-gram Light Phone 3. It besides has 6GB of RAM and 128GB of retention and a MediaTek MT8873 chipset. Connectivity is good: it supports 5G and 4G LTE, has a azygous USB-C 2.0 port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, enactment for Bluetooth 5.0, and some nano SIM and e-SIM. It besides lone has 1 azygous rear camera.
Regarding the keys, yes, you work that right: T9 texting is back. If you're excessively young to retrieve texting connected a fig pad, it involves tapping fig keys aggregate times to get the missive you want. It takes signifier and notably, time, to nonstop a substance -- different imaginable brushed hurdle built into the phone's capabilities: you tin substance connected it, but it's not needfully enjoyable.
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Lastly, I was gladsome to spot the aforesaid 1800 mAH successful the Light Flip that was successful the Light Phone 3. That phone's artillery was 1 of its weakest points, truthful I'm hoping we spot a batch much longevity with the lightweight hardware connected this phone.
The Light Flip is disposable for pre-order present with a $39 deposit and is expected to vessel successful April 2027. It volition beryllium $39/month with Light Service, and disposable successful six colors: black, navy, red, pink, yellow, and airy gray.
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