We’re solely spending extra and extra time gazing 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 methods to curb display screen time. Gadgets just like the Gentle Phone, designed to behave as a secondary telephone with restricted options so you are not gazing Instagram once you’re at a social gathering, are having fun with some recognition. This sort of digital-detox mentality can also 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 Phone, introduced at the moment forward of Milan Design Week. The firm manufacturing it’s Human Cellular Gadgets (HMD), higher often called the corporate making Nokia-branded telephones since 2017 due to a licensing partnership. The Boring Phone is cute, clear, and retrolicious. However it’s not a telephone you should purchase.

At Cellular 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 might broaden its scope by collaborating with different manufacturers outdoors of Nokia as a white-label telephone producer. The huge announcement on the time was the Barbie flip telephone—stemming from a partnership with Mattel—coming this summer time. We don’t have any new particulars about that machine, however The Boring Phone 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 digicam, Twin SIM assist, 4G connectivity, a headphone jack, and a Micro USB port for charging. The battery can final a 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 standard devices from the 1980s 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 penning this piece. It’s attractive.