Light, the New York City firm that makes premium basic phones as alternatives to smartphones, has announced the Light Flip, a $299 flip phone set to launch in April 2027.
The new phone lacks an outer screen but unfolds to reveal a small monochrome display with traditional numberpad, with the same austere design language as the Light Phone 3, a $699 touchscreen phone launched last year, but whose price is rising to $899 due to the unfolding memory pricing crisis affecting most phone manufacturers.
Where that phone only comes in black, the more affordable Light Flip branches out with six available colours including red and yellow.
Specs and Software
The Light Flip is futureproofed with 4G and 5G, 128GB storage and 6GB RAM, as well nano SIM and eSIM with USB-C charging, though in a nod to its flip forebears it has a headphone jack, though it lacks a touchscreen and NFC.
Light's software is built around 'tools' that users can add and take away using an online dashboard via a computer's web browser. It means the phone can be simply a phone with messages and maybe an alarm clock, but if desired can also run tools for directions, podcasts, music playback, hotspot, an authenticator and weather, among others.
The idea is to have a phone as, well, a tool. Light says its devices, of which the Flip is its fourth since 2015, will never have email or social media apps.
Inspiration and Competition
In an interview, Light founders Joe Hollier and Kaiwei Tang told me the Light Flip tries to right the wrongs of modern flip phones. “They really aren't trying to be minimal phones,” Hollier said. “Many of them come pre-installed with apps, browsers, email clients, all of these things. They’re less addictive perhaps because it’s such a small screen, but the Light Phone is a drastically different thing.”
“Obviously the [Motorola] Razr didn’t have any of that but the Razrs are extinct. The 2G networks don’t work any more, so all the modern flip phones are trying to be smartphones.”
Current flip phone competitors include HMD, with so-called ‘dumbphones’ that bear Nokia branding thanks to a licensing deal, Chinese giant TCL, which also licenses the Alcatel brand for some flips, and Doro, a company that makes phones for seniors.
Hollier and Tang said the Light Flip’s beginnings were inspired by Gen Z’s pushback on Big Tech and artificial intelligence (AI), as well as that age group’s penchant for the flip phone form factor - one that they might have been born too late to actually use the first time around, given Gen Z is considered people born between 1997 and 2012.
“You can feel the attitude to smartphones and social media change, like how the habit of smoking changed,” Tang said. "It used to be OK, it used to be cool … then people realise, this is not healthy."
“It’s not a temporary thing, it’s a permanent pushback towards AI and smartphones and big tech and social media,” he added.
“They’re using flip phones today that they hate, but they love the badge of it. They love that this is so obviously not a smartphone,” Hollier said.
Community and Updates
Existing modern flip phones rarely, if ever, get software updates. That’s where Light is different. Hollier in particular is very active on the r/LightPhone subreddit, where he answers Light’s passionate customers directly when they have a query or issue.
A customer suggested the signal and Wi-Fi symbols on the home screen of the Light Phone 3 should be able to be tapped as a shortcut to the connectivity settings. Because they posted it on Reddit, three weeks later it was live on Light Phone 3s all over the world, because Hollier agreed it was a good idea, and the team was able to implement it quickly.
“That person now feels some ownership in the company and I think that’s the kind of thing that no other phone company is really offering people,” Hollier said.
Other updates are slower. The Light Phone 3 has been out for more than a year but still does not make use of the fingerprint reader in the power button or the NFC chip inside, for secure unlocking and mobile payments respectively.
With a small team of only 12 full time staff, Light’s slow updates are understandable. That said, the online changelog shows regular bug fixes and updates are pushed out fairly regularly.
Open Source and Lifestyle Support
Though the Light Flip is nine months away from landing in customers’ hands, right now the firm is opening up its operating system, Light OS, for people to build their own tools. The whole platform is open source, and all tools will be free to Light Flip and Light Phone 3 users. Light even plans to sign off some tools it recommends, but a whole database will be available.
“Over the years we’ve rolled out new features month over month and year over year but we’re a super small team,” Hollier said. “We have so many developers that are supportive of the project dying to get their hands dirty and help because they believe in the mission so much.”
As it understands how difficult the transition to a stripped down Light Phone can be, Light has also announced a newsletter initiative called Flip Your Life.
“We’re trying to give people inspiration,” Tang said. “What can you do with the time that frees up from swiping?”
“The point is not the device itself alone, it’s fundamentally the business model of every app, everything in your phone needs to change so you’re not constantly distracted by it.”
Subjects will include event and book recommendations as well as practical guides partly designed to be sent to people before they even buy a Light Flip or Light Phone 3 (2019’s Light Phone 2 is being discontinued to be replaced by the Flip).
This might include advice on how to perform a digital audit of apps and ways to scale back reliance on a smartphone rather than going cold turkey the day the device arrives in the post.
“We want to get involved earlier, for longer, preparing our customers for this lifestyle change, not just giving you a phone and expecting it’s going to fix your addiction to social media,” Tang said.
Hollier said the Light team is inspired daily by messages from Light Phone buyers, which is the main ways he stays motivated to continue to update the devices and build the company further.
“Almost every day we get an unprompted user emailing in and telling us about their journey,” he said. “We try to remind them, you guys did that hard work, you changed your life, but we’re just so honoured that the Light Phone could be one small catalyst.”
