The New Scorching Handset Is a Cute and Clear Dumb Telephone You Can’t Purchase

We’re solely spending increasingly time gazing our smartphones, and over the previous couple of years, tech firms have tried to supply salves to this very drawback they created. Apple and Google launched instruments inside their respective cell working programs to curb display screen time. Units just like the Mild Telephone, designed to behave as a secondary cellphone with restricted options so you are not gazing Instagram whenever you’re at a social gathering, are having fun with some recognition. This sort of digital detox mentality can also be what’s 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 at this time forward of Milan Design Week. The corporate manufacturing it’s Human Cellular Units (HMD), higher referred to as the corporate making Nokia-branded telephones 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 Cellular World Congress in February 2024, the Finnish firm introduced it was leaning in on the Human Cellular Units 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 system, however The Boring Telephone hails from a collaboration with Heineken (sure, the beer model) and trend model Bodega.

This characteristic cellphone (colloquially known as “dumb” telephones) can solely textual content and make cellphone calls. There is a digicam, 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’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 well-liked devices from the Eighties and ’90s. That has resulted in a clear flip cellphone with holographic stickers and inexperienced accents as a nod to the Heineken partnership. Truthfully, the look of this handset is half the explanation I’m penning this piece. It is attractive.