The Light Flip is a minimalist flip phone that leaves out all those distracting apps

The Light Flip is a minimalist flip phone that leaves out all those distracting apps It's a mashup of the Light Phone III and an old-school flip phone. The Brooklyn-based minimalist phone maker Light is working on a new piece of hardware that is decidedly retro. The Light Flip, as the name suggests, is a flip phone that both calls to mind the devices of yesteryear while also combining it with some nods to modernity. A Galaxy Flip-style device this is not, however, In keeping with the company's ethos, the Light Flip is a distraction-free device that has none of the "endless scroll" apps that dominate people's attention. The Light Flip resembles a mash-up of the Light Phone III (which the company released last year) and an old-school flip phone. In the pictures I've seen so far, the interface closely resembles that of the Light Phone III — it's just a list of tools, white text on a black background. Most of the tools look the same — as I said when I reviewed the Light Phone III last year, this is minimalism taken to the extreme. Given its form factor, though, the Light Flip does not have a touch screen. Instead, it has a 12-button keypad that'll be familiar to anyone who grew up texting with T9 (or making calls from a landline). There are also three function buttons, the center of which is inside of a four-way directional button to move the phone's cursor around. There's a home button on the side and volume up/down switches surrounding it. Finally, there's a big old speaker at the bottom, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a USB-C port. Unlike a lot of flip phones both old and new there's no external screen when the Flip is closed. Instead, there's a notification light. On the back, there's a 50-megapixel camera that outputs 12-megapixel images as well as a removeable battery hidden behind a screw-down plate. It's extremely similar to the Light Phone III, though the Flip is made of plastic rather than aluminium. Unlike the Light Phone III, which only comes in black, the Flip will be available in six different shades. Beyond the new form factor, Light has a few other tricks planned for the Flip. It's the first phone that they'll be selling bundled with a phone plan. $39 a month for two years gets you the Light Flip and the Light service plan with unlimited voice and text plus 1GB of data per month. Given the whole point of the Light Phone is to not use it too much, that data should be good for most buyers. The company really only recommends the unlimited plan (which would cost $69 / month with the Flip) if you're going to heavily use its 5G connection for the hotspot feature. And if you're more interested in the Light Phone III, the company will soon offer a phone plus contract bundle for $59 / month as well. Why a flip phone now, though? Light's founder Joe Hollier and Kaiwei Tang told me that they've gotten a lot of requests for the form factor, particularly from younger users who want a phone that's even less smartphone-like than the Light Phone III. They've also seen lots of people in "distraction-free" communities move to old-school flip phones — but most new flip phones in production are not terribly capable. (Obviously we're not talking about phones like Motorola's modern-day Razr or the various Samsung flip phones.) Another intriguing piece of the puzzle is the forthcoming Light SDK for creating and distributing third-party tools to expand the phone's functionality. Work on the SDK is progressing and the company says it should be ready to start rolling out third-party tools in the fall. The biggest issue I had when using the Light Phone III was missing just a few things that I need my phone to have for every day usage, and this could definitely help close the gap for people like me. Light says that it intends to make it easy to tweak tools developed for the Light Phone III work with the Light Flip's keypad and cursor interface. Unfortunately, this phone won't arrive for a while — it's not expected to ship until April of 2027. That's not a big shock coming from a small manufacturer like Light, but you'll still need to be patient. You can pre-order the Light Flip now though if you want to make sure you're among the first to receive it. [Image text:] Phone Alarm Music Podcasts Calendar Directions Notes