Dumb and Dumber: Assessing the most popular smartphone alternatives on the market
Including two flip phones, two e-ink screens, one that could pass for a calculator, one by a beer company and one that comes pre-loaded with Jewish prayer apps
1. The Minimal Phone is a fully functional smartphone with a twist: an e-ink screen and a tactile QWERTY keyboard for anyone who misses their BlackBerry.
2. Invented by two former Google staffers, the Light Phone III has a black-and-white screen and a tight roster of basic tools such as a calendar, a calculator, a camera and directions.
3. The Wisephone runs on a proprietary operating system that blocks social media, games and internet browsing.
4. The bare-bones and kosher Mindful Phone comes with Jewish prayer apps pre-installed.
5. Heineken’s Boring Phone began as a marketing gimmick for the beer giant; now it’s a collector’s item for flip phone enthusiasts.
6. With a nine-centimetre-tall screen, the Unihertz Jelly is the world’s smallest Android smartphone.
7. The Mudita Kompakt packs just the essentials—phone, maps, calendar, audio recorder—behind a matte e-ink screen.
8. The Punkt MP02 looks like a calculator, and that’s about all it does beyond calling and messaging.
9. A modern take on the classic flip phone, the TCL Flip 2 offers talk, text and little else.
