– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

- There is a growing movement over the past couple years

that at first seems kind of backwards,

but then the more you think about it,

it actually does start to make a lot of sense.

It's dumb phones,

a phone that just goes back to the basics

and does exactly what you need and nothing more,

'cause clearly we need to spend less time staring

at these colorful glowing boxes

and go outside and touch grass, right?

(air whooshing)

So, okay, it's 2025,

smartphones do everything, they're amazing,

and they have been for a while.

And I think we all agree

that they're a net positive for humanity.

They're incredible at connecting people across the globe.

They give us access to information everywhere.

They've revolutionized modern photography,

they've created entire new economies around them.

Amazing.

But along with all of that good comes

some trade offs naturally,

and one of the biggest ones is that they're designed

to keep your attention and to be addicting.

There are apps that literally,

their sole purpose is to maximize your screen time,

to send you distracting notifications to hook you back in

and just give you little strategic hits of dopamine here

and there to keep you plugged in as long as possible.

So, the idea is simple.

What if we just took all of that extra stuff

and took it outta the smartphone

and just left you with exactly what you need?

And if that sounds familiar,

it's because I talked about this in depth

in my BOOX Palma review.

I'll link it below that Like button

if you wanna check that out.

But yeah, this concept isn't exactly new,

but this particular phone

is the most interesting version I've seen yet.

This feels like if someone was assigned a task

of designing a dumb phone

that a smartphone lover like me

would still be tempted to use,

then this is about what they would make.

(gentle electronic beep)

So, all right, we gotta talk about this Light Phone III.

So, in the spectrum of dumb phones,

this one is definitely the most premium-feeling one,

like this is the one that will feel the most at home

for regular smartphone users.

So, maybe you've seen some of the others in this category,

like the BOOX Palma,

or now the BOOX Palma 2 that I've been testing,

or even this one.

This is called the Minimal Phone,

which has an E-Ink display as well, and a physical keyboard.

There was also the Light Phone II

and the Light Phone I before this,

but the Light Phone III I was immediately drawn to.

It's not E-Ink,

this is an OLED display under matte glass

and it's wrapped in this all-metal body.

So, it's this cool little all-black box

with big, clicky buttons around it.

The bottom of the front here is this large speaker grill,

which throws me back to the HTC One M8 days,

and on the left side

is actually this nice dial that rotates.

Like, this is nice.

It's got these nice flat sides, obviously,

the buttons are clicky and built well.

The whole thing, it's just nice to hold.

And so then it's got this button on top you use

to turn it on,

and then you hit that button to go into the UI

and it's this nice, clean UI.

All-black background, thin, white text,

just the time and the battery at the top.

Then, like I said,

this button on the right always takes you home,

and this is your UI.

Just text labels of the different essential things

that it does.

This is the part where I age myself

and I ask if anyone else remembers the Zune HD.

If you don't, do yourself a favor and Google it real quick.

Pull up another tab, check that out.

You might end up wanting one,

but you can't have one because it's 16 years old,

so close that tab, come back here.

Okay, this is the primo in minimal phone experience,

even nice little touches like this dial

on the left hand side.

If you turn that,

that's your brightness adjustment anytime you want.

And then if you push it in, that turns on the flashlight.

It's convenient.

And then it does have a SIM card tray right here,

so you can make phone calls and save contacts.

And then you can see the other things it's capable of,

of course, setting alarms, everybody needs that.

There's a calculator and a calendar, there's a camera,

which, as you can see,

activates the single camera on the back.

It's got this dedicated two-stage shutter button.

Now, it's not a good camera, but it is a camera.

You can't change aspect ratio or resolution,

or do portrait mode or anything like that,

but it is definitely a camera.

I scroll to my second page

and you can see I have the Maps app,

which actually does turn-by-turn directions,

walking or driving.

And there's also a podcast experience,

which is super basic, but that's all it has to be.

It's functional,

let's use subscribe to podcasts

and listen to them on the fly.

And you can even pair Bluetooth headphones to this.

Now, if you ever wanna add or remove any apps,

you actually can't do that on the phone.

You can reorder them,

but if you ever wanna add or remove any,

you have to go to the online dashboard,

and this gets set up right when you get the Light Phone.

But through here,

you can click into the Toolbox section

and then you can add or remove tools

from the Toolbox is what they call it.

So, the ones I don't have on this phone here are Directory,

which is a contacts list, Hotspot,

Music, Notes, and Timer.

And if I wanted to add one,

all I'd do is click on it and hit Install

and it appears on the phone in a couple seconds.

And I love the idea of this.

This is such a neat, just a neat little piece of hardware.

It's like a little, it's a conversation starter too.

Like, if you ask me, like I said,

to design a minimal phone piece of hardware

that's like half the size of a normal phone,

it's just a nice thing to hold.

I like this, I like this a lot.

And E-Ink, E-Ink was cool

on a lot of those other minimal phones

because obviously the legendary battery life

and that readability and all those other conditions,

but I actually think I prefer this

in most indoor lighting situations anyway.

It's just, it feels more premium

and it can do all the same stuff.

But yet there is no TikTok,

there is no Twitter on this phone, there is no Instagram,

there is no email, there is no web browser,

there are no third-party apps,

no notifications other than texts and calls.

I will never waste my time on this phone.

Unfortunately, once you actually try to use this phone,

that is the exact moment

that it goes from being a really cool idea

to really frustrating. (notification beeping)

So, okay, let's say I'm at the studio

and I have a calendar event in an hour in the city

and I wanna navigate there.

I can actually put a location in the calendar event,

but I can't click on it to navigate.

And so, you might think, "Okay, just copy and paste it,"

but this phone doesn't seem to have copy and paste either.

So, you gotta go ahead

and manually flip over to the Directions app

and then start typing away.

And good luck, because there's no auto-correct either.

So, you're gonna want to double check

and get this address exactly right

with no multitasking feature to help you out.

If I go to pay for something

at the local bistro while I'm there,

I can't pay with my mobile wallet like I would

with a smartphone, even though it does actually have NFC.

Okay, not a big deal,

I guess I can break out the old fashioned physical card,

and also the vibration motor's pretty bad,

which makes me sad.

Also, that top button is supposed to be a fingerprint reader

to lock and unlock as well, but that doesn't work yet.

I also would've liked

a nice scroll animation between pages,

just as a subtle nod to maybe even like the Zune HD,

maybe some nice scrolling physics.

It is OLED after all, but I don't know,

maybe scrolling is too triggering

or just feels like it reminds you of TikTok,

so they don't do that.

There is no ebook reader at all,

which maybe just feels like it's missing,

because so many other dumb phones do have reader apps.

But I guess it's a natural fit on all of those

because most of them are E-Ink displays,

which are perfect for reading.

But I don't know, why can't I have a reader on this one?

It has podcasts, it has music.

This single camera here, it's a 50 megapixel sensor,

which bends down to 12,

and there are no settings

for shooting full 50 megapixel resolution,

or changing the resolution to anything else at all,

or aspect ratio, or focal length, just flash and exposure.

And I know the photos aren't good,

but if I do need to send them to someone,

this phone doesn't support RCS,

so I'd be sending them in an ultra compressed,

not encrypted MMS message instead.

That also means all two-factor authentication using this

would have to be done via insecure SMS,

because there's no authenticator apps here, obviously.

And I also happen to have a bunch

of other conversations happening in other messaging apps,

WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Slack.

I can't have any of those conversations here.

And I also happen to use Spotify for my music.

And so, I'm really not trying to move all of those playlists

and all of those songs manually to this app.

I would've liked some kind of Spotify support

or something like that.

But hang on, I've realized I'm asking for more here.

And that's because in order to use this as my daily phone,

I mean, there are things that I need it to do

that it isn't capable of.

Like, I use to-do list apps and Google Drive

and weather apps on my phone every day, so I need more,

but the more I ask for it to do,

the more I'm just going back to turning it into

a regular smartphone again.

So, a really big part of the review process for this phone

for me has been trying to figure out,

is this phone really supposed to be your primary,

only smartphone that you carry?

Or, if we're being honest,

is it more just like you do have this

as like your main phone,

but you also carry like another smartphone

in your back pocket,

or you have a computer in your backpack

or something everywhere you go?

Because that's two very different ways

of looking at this product.

And maybe just because I can't make this my main phone

doesn't mean other people couldn't.

Like, maybe this could be for a kid who,

this is their first smartphone

and their parents are getting this for them

so that they can't also drown in TikToks,

or maybe a particularly offline professional,

or just someone who prioritizes minimizing distractions

at all costs.

Like, this could be fully functional,

technically, for those people.

So, just because it's not for me doesn't mean it's bad.

Think of it like a bicycle.

Like, for some people,

that will be their primary

and only means of transportation all the time,

but for a lot of other people,

it'll be more of a fun weekend recreational cruiser.

At least that's what I would say

if there wasn't one more overarching reason

why probably nobody should buy this phone.

(gentle electronic beep)

Look, this phone is nice.

It is built well, it is satisfying to hold,

it's unique, and it's for a niche audience,

but there's no way anybody should pay $800 for this phone.

I'm sorry. There's just no way.

Now, if you pre-order, it's only $600,

which is a little less ridiculous,

but I still think it's too much.

This is my only real problem with this phone,

just because conceptually,

you're getting a device that does less,

that's the whole point,

but paying more than a normal phone

for something like that just seems ridiculous.

Like, I looked at the spec sheet of this phone.

Obviously, it doesn't have to have great specs

to do the limited things that it does,

but the specs are a Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 Chip,

128 gigs of storage, six gigs of RAM,

the single camera, a four-inch 1080p OLED,

and an 1,800 milliampere-hour battery.

Like, that is not the spec sheet of an $800 phone.

Just for some context,

some other phones using the same chip are the Poco M6 Plus,

the Redmi 13, and the vivo Y39,

all of which retail for under $200.

And look, I know the specs were never gonna be the reason

that this phone costs a lot.

In fact, if you wanna know the real reason,

it's probably some combination of the materials,

which is, you know, it's metal, it's high quality,

but also software development costs,

'cause it's unique software, and low volume,

so it's just gonna cost more with economies of scale,

and also probably tariffs.

But there's actually a really interesting video

that the Nothing Team did recently.

It's on their YouTube channel,

basically just pricing out the rough cost behind

an imaginary smartphone.

It's really interesting.

I'll link a below if you wanna check it out.

But understanding that a pretty niche,

low-volume phone like this

that's also made of all metal and IP54 rated

and with a pretty massive front speaker

and a bunch of other kind of oddly-shaped parts,

like, economies of scale says,

"Okay, it's not gonna be the cheapest thing in the world,"

but it's just hard to get all the way to six to $800

for a phone that does less on purpose,

like, when you could pay $500

and get a full-fledged smartphone

and then just put a minimal launcher on it

and then just delete the apps that you don't wanna use,

you know what I mean?

Like, the Light Phone company could have theoretically made

a launcher app instead of a phone,

but then they couldn't have charged 800 bucks for it.

So I get that the point is on this phone,

you can't get trapped doom scrolling on TikTok,

while on the regular phone with a launcher,

you still could technically.

And it's a cool piece of hardware,

it's a really fun design

and I like that this stuff is unique and that it exists,

but at the end of the day,

it's hard to get behind charging that much

for something that's pretty much guaranteed

for most people going to be their second phone

when they're already carrying a full-priced,

fully capable phone probably in their other pocket.

It kind of feels like they're taking advantage

of people's lack of discipline with this shiny new $800 box

that's gonna solve their doom scrolling problem.

You know what is worth the money though?

The new Ridge Power Bank.

The value proposition here is actually insane,

because yes, it is a power bank,

but it's really like a five-in-one,

all-in-one multi-tool type thing for $69.

Nice. Check it out at ridge.com/mkbhd

and see it for yourself.

And thanks to Ridge for sponsoring this portion

of the video.

But I'll leave you with this.

This is your question of the video.

Do you honestly think

that you could daily drive this as your only phone?

No backup, how long could you last?

Lemme know in the comments below.

Thanks for watching. Catch you in the next one.

Peace. (gentle music)