Novelty flip phone strips out almost every feature possible to be as boring as possible
- Reference: 1713438013
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/04/18/novelty_flip_phone_strips_out/
- Source link:
[1]The Boring Phone was born out of a collaboration between Bodega and Heineken (yes, the beer company) and aims to provide a feature-light phone experience. It bills itself as "without almost any feature," such as Wi-Fi, a selfie camera, push notifications, and especially social media.
[2]
The Boring Phone flip phone
Though there are some games, like Snake and Tetris; honestly, do you really need anything else?
The phone's official page does a great job of outlining what it can't do, but not so much what it can. However, it appears that the Boring Phone is a reskin of the [3]Nokia 2660 Flip , which helpfully does have a spec sheet. The phone's core hardware components are its ripping fast single-core T107 from Unisoc, a whopping 48 MB of LPDDR2 RAM, and a hefty 128 MB for internal storage. A microSD card slot enables an extra 32 GB of storage to be added.
Other highlights includes the inner and outer displays, each with a 320 by 240 pixel resolution, the 0.3 megapixel outer camera, a 1,450 mAh battery that allows for up to six hours of talk time on 4G networks (even more on 2G and 3G), Bluetooth 4.2, and a 3.5mm headphone jack, something that even the latest smartphones don't always have.
[4]No Motorola Razr comeback orders in 2019: Costly foldy nostalgia mobe pulled back
[5]Pablo Escobar's brother is Medellín in the foldable phone biz, sniffing out new markets
[6]Ericsson and Kodiak in Europe WALKIE-TALKIE-style push-to-talk push
[7]Apple to allow some iPhones to be repaired with used parts
Of course, Bodega and Heineken changed some things around. The UI has a custom, GameBoy-esque green and black color palette, and the chassis is now made of clear plastic that exposes the internal hardware. It is of course branded with the Heineken and Bodega logos too, and comes with stickers with even more logos.
The Boring Phone apparently won't be sold at retail, but instead 5,000 units will be given away per [8]the Verge , as this is just a marketing stunt in the end. The UK will be the first to get in on the giveaways, with other regions joining later.
[9]
Plus, Heineken also plans to launch an app that imitates the UI of the Boring Phone in case non-winners want to experience it. ®
Get our [10]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.heineken.com/global/en/theboringphone
[2] https://regmedia.co.uk/2024/04/17/boring-phone.jpg
[3] https://www.hmd.com/en_int/nokia-2660-flip?sku=1GF011NPC1A04
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2019/12/23/motorola_delays_its_pricey_foldable_razr_comeback/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2019/12/03/escobar-fold-phone/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2014/02/18/ericsson_kodiak_ptt/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/11/apple_iphone_repair/
[8] https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/16/24132479/hmd-boring-phone-heineken-bodega
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZiFDn1-iCBXwrmjWvGVZWAAAANc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Boring is good.
Boring phone would be fine if it was just made possible to share the 5G connection over wifi or bluetooth. That would give me everything I need.
Re: Boring is good.
K-9 Mail client is your friend.
Export settings and then reimport if they get lost (although that's never happened to me). The only thing you will need to remember is email account passwords.
Re: Boring is good.
How many remember the Motorola V3?
It was indestructible, worked, had a great screen and keypad you could use.
Some of the shoddiest date validation I've ever seen on that site.
Well spotted! I managed to enter 31st September and get a .Net runtime error page.
Don't Drink & Code kids.
Bummer
Just when I read a title that tells me : this is my phone for when I retire, the rest of the article says I won't get it.
Grrr.
Re: Bummer
Yes, it's a real shame that this 'phone won't be for sale.
I'm currently looking for a replacement for my el cheapo LG dumb phone. I don't want one of those all singing all dancing efforts that cost and arm and a leg. I just want a 'phone so I can make calls, send texts and nothing else.
Even so that 'phone has a camera? Looks a bit to specced up to me.
Re: Bummer
So....
This phone is a re-skin of the Nokia 2660 Flip, which is available.
Why not buy that? (mind you, it seems a bit over-priced. Tesco sell a basic Alcatel flip phone for less, as well as the Flip and a Doro with similar format).
Also, look at Amazon.
Re: Bummer
What stood out for me is the 4G support. It seems quite a few of the basic cheapie phones are 2G...which is fine for texts and calls and no frills, but not quite so fine given that 2G is running out of road.
One slight thing. What's the point of the camera? I mean you cant look at the pictures on such a screen... So how are you going to know if there crap (they will be) or not... ;)
As a (proud) owner of a nokia 2660 I can assure you there is no point at all to the camera, I'd rather it wasn't there
The camera would be good for taking pictures of things that you need to make a note of later, like signs or public notices, business cards, hand written notes, or something you saw on a store shelf. It's easier to take a photo of it than to remember to carry a pencil and notepad around for it. The camera and screen are more than good enough for that. I have a phone with equivalent specs to this and the camera is very handy. I also use the calculator and calendar (just shows dates) occasionally.
When my nieces first saw it they were astonished that phone technology had advanced to the point where it was possible to make a phone that was so much smaller than the smartphones they had.
Surely ideal for children
OK, they can still text and call the Paedos, but it cuts down on so many of the other channels.
Perfect for any father to give to their daughter.
Have a son and you only have to worry about one dick. Have a daughter and have to worry about all of them!
Basic Wi-Fi would be a good addition to allow Wi-Fi Calling and even tethering, but perhaps that's too much additional cost for a small benefit when there should be virtually no other use for data services. Texting must be awful on this thing, given how most of the incoming messages would be full of emojis that it can't display properly. 48MB of RAM is really funny given how large a single chip/package of RAM is, even DDR2; it seems like they must have found a stash of very early, small LPDDR2 chips somewhere and wanted to use them up.
Yep the Unisoc T107 uses LPDDR2.
A lot of modern flip phones have WiFi. Yes, they also usually have a basic web browser, but you are free not to use it, and if I remember correctly from when my friends showed me the experience of using a flip phone to browse, you wouldn't want to use it anyway. There are many phones more capable than this one but without the interfaces of a normal smartphone, so they can often let you opt out of smartphone activities because they either can't install apps or can install them but you wouldn't be able to use them well.
A bit like my Samsung e1270, pretty much the thickest of thick phones, rings, texts that it.
Don't want a smartphone, people might contact me.
I have the Nokia 2660 Flip.
Good form factor but the OS leaves a lot to be desired. It is not as good as the classic Nokia 3310 equivalent.
- Often the layering of screens gets mixed up and you end up with a garbled mess
- Upon restart, often text messages are a completely random order (date sort seems buggy).
- It didn't update the time to daylight saving time correctly. The "enable" toggle button seemed defective?
- I have seen a 32nd month in some places of the OS (I think it was the sms/messages screen) during February.
The battery lifespan is *OK*. I would have expected better for modern tech and a "simple" OS.
Is there any way we can get an actual 3310 or 3210 or 66xx produced in 2024? They were still so much better.
So if this new "boring" phone is produced, hopefully the OS gets a bit of a review. I do like the concept!
Boring is good.
No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just a regular smartphone without:
- any AI cruft at all
- any pre-installed/uninstallabe apps from MS, Google, Samsung,
- no 3rd party cruft
I would also like my Google account to merely act as the key to the playstore, and not muscle that gmail address into my contacts, mail, calendar and everywhere else it can.
(True story, my wife missed a moths worth of emails, as for some reason her phones mail app decided to only show the gmail inbox. Despite being configured not to twice).