Light’s new $299 flip phone has no apps and T9 texting, but aims to connect people
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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Light just announced the Light Flip — a minimalist flip phone for $299.
- It has a slightly lower-end build compared to the Light Phone 3, but aims for a thoughtful design and striking colors.
- It comes with a nine-month “Flip Your Life” program that helps users prepare to ditch their smartphones for good.
Light, the company that made the “premium dumbphone”, just announced the latest device to its lineup: the Light Flip, a $299 flip phone with the same minimal aesthetic but with trade-offs in hardware, build, and a lower rate at $39 a month.
The Brooklyn-based company’s core ethos remains the same: a completely minimalist UI, no email, no apps, and limited features — even less than the Light Phone 3, which was already spare. The result is a unique device in wild colors designed solely for making calls and sending texts (if you can brave the T9 keyboard).
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Sure, it’s a flip, but it’s chunkier than the Light Phone 3, has a worse camera, no touchscreen, no NFC capabilities, is made of plastic instead of aluminum, and has less memory. So what’s the draw here? Obviously, it’s not about the specs; Light says it’s about the lifestyle.
Flip your life
I talked to Light’s two co-founders, Joe Hollier and Kaiwei Tang ahead of the announcement, and they were clear about the intended demographic: 18-30-year-olds who want out of the smartphone ecosystem. Working with a consultancy during development, Tang said that 52% of Gen Z and Millennial consumers would consider using a non-smartphone — a statistic that throws the door wide open for product development.
Not being able to access social media, news, or email on your phone is a potentially freeing prospect for the millions of people who feel trapped in endless doomscrolling or notification hell. But the modern smartphone has embedded itself into our lives so thoroughly, it requires some real dedication to make it sustainable.
The shock of going from an iPhone to something like the Light Flip can be so great, it sends users back to the dark side after a matter of weeks or months. “It’s not just a different pair of shoes, it’s a complete lifestyle change,” Hollier said. In that sense, Light saw an opportunity: helping its users make the transition, and build into the device itself.
With the Light Flip 3 available for pre-order now, buyers also have the choice to enroll in Light’s own “digital audit” preparedness program called Flip Your Life, which aims to prepare users to ditch their smartphone in the nine months before the product actually ships (yes, the Light Flip is expected to become available in April 2027).
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“You don’t just buy a phone from us, we help you make the transition,” Tang said of the program. Users can connect in a digital community, share vulnerabilities, tips and tricks to divest in their smartphones, and acclimatize to reordering their digital lives — an entirely new social component that accompanies the phones’ purchase and, Light hopes, keeps people on them. Considering it’ll be a wait before anyone actually has the Light Flip in hand, there’s more than enough time to engage.
Minimal… but more-so
The other reason for the Light Flip is to serve the entry level minimalist phone market, with an affordable $299 price and $39/month payment. In terms of trade-offs, first of all, the build is made of plastic, and there is no touchscreen: the 2.8-inch matte glass OLED on the Light Flip has a 480 x 640 resolution and is navigated solely by a D-pad, function buttons, a Home button on the right side, and volume up and down.
The phone measures 110mm by 58mm by 19mm (folded) and weighs 160 grams, notably more than the 124-gram Light Phone 3. It also has 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage and a MediaTek MT8873 chipset. Connectivity is good: it supports 5G and 4G LTE, has a single USB-C 2.0 port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, support for Bluetooth 5.0, and both nano SIM and e-SIM. It also only has one single rear camera.
Regarding the keys, yes, you read that right: T9 texting is back. If you’re too young to remember texting on a number pad, it involves tapping number keys multiple times to get the letter you want. It takes practice and notably, time, to send a text — another potential soft hurdle built into the phone’s capabilities: you can text on it, but it’s not necessarily enjoyable.
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Lastly, I was glad to see the same 1800 mAH in the Light Flip that was in the Light Phone 3. That phone’s battery was one of its weakest points, so I’m hoping we see a lot more longevity with the lightweight hardware on this phone.
The Light Flip is available for pre-order now with a $39 deposit and is expected to ship in April 2027. It will be $39/month with Light Service, and available in six colors: black, navy, red, pink, yellow, and light gray.
