For such a a functionally limited device it seems really odd to have it cost $400 and be fat enough to feel like half a deck of cards in your pocket. If I was in the market for a tiny phone like...
For such a a functionally limited device it seems really odd to have it cost $400 and be fat enough to feel like half a deck of cards in your pocket. If I was in the market for a tiny phone like this, I feel like I’d want it to basically be a Zoolander phone, or as close to it as is ergonomic. Aside from the better digital hygiene thing, one of the big perks of not having a traditional smartphone with me would just be freeing up the pocket space and having cleaner lines on my trousers.
Aside from note-taking, I feel like a cellular Apple Watch fulfills what this promises (minus the camera) but much better, much easier to carry around, and for about the same price.
This is the issue with almost all new entries into a market. They just don't have the tech base or the economies of scale to compete with established brands from a feature to price point...
For such a a functionally limited device it seems really odd to have it cost $400 and be fat enough to feel like half a deck of cards in your pocket.
This is the issue with almost all new entries into a market. They just don't have the tech base or the economies of scale to compete with established brands from a feature to price point comparison. I don't think that's a completely unreasonable number given the size of their operation and the expectation of the size of the market, but there's no way they can get anywhere close to a budget smart phone.
I wonder if Daylight might tackle this product category once they’ve established their tablet market. The rLCD display seems like a great use case for something like that, especially if they make...
I wonder if Daylight might tackle this product category once they’ve established their tablet market. The rLCD display seems like a great use case for something like that, especially if they make it double as a phone-shaped ereader. The BookTok girlies are really into that Boox Palma thing right now.
I haven’t used it. I have too much clutter in my house and not enough money in the bank account to go buying new devices or I’d probably try it out. But I’m excited to see where it goes.
I haven’t used it. I have too much clutter in my house and not enough money in the bank account to go buying new devices or I’d probably try it out. But I’m excited to see where it goes.
Not quite because the Daylight uses reflected light to project through the screen rather than having to light a backlight. The battery life advantage is huge and it’s supposed to be good for eye...
Not quite because the Daylight uses reflected light to project through the screen rather than having to light a backlight. The battery life advantage is huge and it’s supposed to be good for eye strain too.
That is insane. $400 made it nuts but maybe justifiable as an overpriced hipster bauble. $800 for something like this is basically just the Williamsburg equivalent of pointless, vapid luxury...
That is insane. $400 made it nuts but maybe justifiable as an overpriced hipster bauble. $800 for something like this is basically just the Williamsburg equivalent of pointless, vapid luxury consumption. You could get a Nokia dumb phone for $50-$60.
I've been looking into that since I read this article a few days ago. There are KaiOS phones that work in the United States. The Nokia 2780 comes to mind and is a flip phone (with apps and such)....
I've been looking into that since I read this article a few days ago. There are KaiOS phones that work in the United States. The Nokia 2780 comes to mind and is a flip phone (with apps and such). This Light Phone is simply way too expensive for doing very few things. I just can't justify it. You, however, said it best:
$800 for something like this is basically just the Williamsburg equivalent of pointless, vapid luxury consumption
The smarts on the phones are what makes the good cameras good. It’s a ton of post processing at work. If you just took the data that hits the sensor you’d be not that much better than a good flip...
The smarts on the phones are what makes the good cameras good. It’s a ton of post processing at work. If you just took the data that hits the sensor you’d be not that much better than a good flip phone cameras. Unfortunately these two functions can’t be disentangled.
Yeah the Light Phone is a cool concept and I’m sure it fits some people’s needs well, but if I were to go on a “phone diet” I’d probably go for a cellular Apple Watch paired with AirPods for...
Yeah the Light Phone is a cool concept and I’m sure it fits some people’s needs well, but if I were to go on a “phone diet” I’d probably go for a cellular Apple Watch paired with AirPods for calls/music and a nice compact digital camera for photo duty.
$799 seems like a very big price tag for what is essentially a bit of a dumb phone. Even the "reduced" price, $399, seems like a lot for how little you get - why not just buy a budget smartphone...
$799 seems like a very big price tag for what is essentially a bit of a dumb phone. Even the "reduced" price, $399, seems like a lot for how little you get - why not just buy a budget smartphone and disable whatever stuff you don't want to use?
That’s just how niche devices are. The bigger you get, the more you benefit from economies of scale. A niche dumb phone will never be able to be remotely competitively on specs. You get it because...
That’s just how niche devices are. The bigger you get, the more you benefit from economies of scale. A niche dumb phone will never be able to be remotely competitively on specs. You get it because it does what you want.
What I don’t like is the chonk. For a dumb phone it sure takes up pocket space. $700 seems perfectly reasonable as a price, if it works well.
Yeah, the size is an interesting comparison. My iPhone 12 mini is 131.5 x 64.2 x 7.4, while the LP3 is 106 x 71.5 x 12 - that’ll likely feel a little odd in my hand at first.
Yeah, the size is an interesting comparison.
My iPhone 12 mini is 131.5 x 64.2 x 7.4, while the LP3 is 106 x 71.5 x 12 - that’ll likely feel a little odd in my hand at first.
The thing about smartphones is that they’re really, really great. There are literally hundreds of possible useful edge cases that smartphones can fill a gap that no prior existing technology...
The thing about smartphones is that they’re really, really great. There are literally hundreds of possible useful edge cases that smartphones can fill a gap that no prior existing technology filled, and the average person probably utilizes at least a dozen of them. Maps, texting, music, calculator are the obvious ones that you can replicate and provide alternatives for. But banking apps, hiking trackers, cross device notes and tasks, home controls, airline boarding passes, tickets, nutrition tracking, food delivery, photo editing, language learning, and more and more are all things you can do on a smartphone that isn’t particularly addictive or damaging but does have massive potential benefits. You’re giving up a lot of genuine utility in order to prevent yourself from having access to the damaging brain wiring addictive applications, and that is a very tough sell for the vast majority of people imo, including people who do have genuine technological addictions and even many of those who would openly admit to it and even are actively seeking solutions.
The best solution for my overuse of addictive/maladaptive smartphone functions has been to become so busy during work that I'd never consider them. And its corollary, become so sick of technology...
The best solution for my overuse of addictive/maladaptive smartphone functions has been to become so busy during work that I'd never consider them. And its corollary, become so sick of technology and synchronous/async communication during work hours that the infinite info-hose becomes aversive during personal time.
As a hyper-productive degenerate who prioritizes being present and intentional with my household, fwiw. :) The smartphone has been a massive upgrade to my life.
Yeah, I think you're right. I was just pointing out that it's not necessarily necessary to generate those tokens with a smartphone; there are desktop software solutions for that.
Yeah, I think you're right. I was just pointing out that it's not necessarily necessary to generate those tokens with a smartphone; there are desktop software solutions for that.
Worth noting, however, that using 2FA provided by the same service that stores your passwords themselves is basically making it not two-factor anymore. So you lose any security benefits thereof.
Worth noting, however, that using 2FA provided by the same service that stores your passwords themselves is basically making it not two-factor anymore. So you lose any security benefits thereof.
There’s a lot of discussion and disagreement around this topic. 1Password’s blog, which is generally pretty good, has one such write up 1Password and 2FA: Is it wrong to store passwords and...
There’s a lot of discussion and disagreement around this topic.
The short answer is that storing your TOTP in 1Password is safe. It’s also faster and more convenient than using a separate, dedicated app.
Each factor must be separate and distinct to be valid.
While you turn on the 2FA setting in your account, and subsequent sign-ins require your password and a TOTP, you lack a true second factor when both secrets originate from the same device. And that means you have the same level of protection whether you store your TOTP in 1Password or an authenticator app (on the same device).
We established that a true second factor is a device other than the one used to store your password — it might be a Yubikey, Titan, or an old device you use primarily for authentication.
These are both security advantages of 2FA -- though it being from a second device is definitely a big part of the advantage of 2FA, given that it's what the name refers to in the first place. It...
These are both security advantages of 2FA -- though it being from a second device is definitely a big part of the advantage of 2FA, given that it's what the name refers to in the first place. It rotating is necessary to make it not just the same thing as another password, though.
I was probably wrong to say you lose any security benefits of 2FA in my original comment, it's definitely more secure than not having it at all, but you definitely lose some of the security advantage by not having it be a true second factor (though as the 1Password quote from the other reply points out, you also lose that by having your password manager and 2FA app on the same device at all - which I guess means I have true 2FA when I log in from my laptop, but not when I log in from my phone).
For context, most services implement a standard 2FA token generation algorithm (TOTP), so they only really have to implement it once to work with every service. Equally, the USB dongles which you...
For context, most services implement a standard 2FA token generation algorithm (TOTP), so they only really have to implement it once to work with every service.
Equally, the USB dongles which you press to authenticate are another standard (FIDO), so they only have to implement that once as well … fingers crossed, I suppose.
On one hand this seems like a decent evolution of the "dumb" phone(I also did not research them that much and so I don't know what is their privacy impact which seems it would have been either a...
On one hand this seems like a decent evolution of the "dumb" phone(I also did not research them that much and so I don't know what is their privacy impact which seems it would have been either a major pro or a massive con here).
On the other it is not really for me personally. Despite my hate for "smartphones" I don't think the massive downsides(some of this device wants to address) are inherent in a pocket size computer capable of connecting to a cellular network. They were simply added.
Personally I would love well supported, decent hw, e-ink, small form factor pocket computer capable of running mainline Linux kernel just like that.
I really enjoyed experimenting with the Light Phone II earlier this year. It was a nice chance to drop away from a lot of life’s stresses. Ultimately, I ended up moving back to my iPhone 12,...
I really enjoyed experimenting with the Light Phone II earlier this year. It was a nice chance to drop away from a lot of life’s stresses.
Ultimately, I ended up moving back to my iPhone 12, largely for the camera. Everything else was pretty manageable with the phone and a small laptop in a bag. (I still carry around the laptop anyway)
I’m excited for this iteration, as the change in screen technology may make the user input a little friendlier, and the camera may solve my greatest issue with version 2.
This may be defeating the purpose, but do you know if they are planning to support anything like the Strava app? I don't use my phone for much and this seems like a perfect fit but I do like the...
This may be defeating the purpose, but do you know if they are planning to support anything like the Strava app? I don't use my phone for much and this seems like a perfect fit but I do like the bike/swim tracking features I currently have. Thanks for sharing, seems like a great product!
I’m not aware of any plans to support Strava - I think the limited battery capacity of earlier versions would be a big detractor to keeping the radio on that often. This one has about 3x the...
I’m not aware of any plans to support Strava - I think the limited battery capacity of earlier versions would be a big detractor to keeping the radio on that often. This one has about 3x the battery capacity, but it’s also using a more power-hungry display, so we’ll see.
I think they’ve announced plans to integrate Spotify in the past, but I don’t know if there’s been any concrete progress on that.
The line between bespoke hardware product and an Android application launcher with a color filter gets blurrier every day. I get the appeal of dedicated hardware, but an eink screen and a little...
The line between bespoke hardware product and an Android application launcher with a color filter gets blurrier every day. I get the appeal of dedicated hardware, but an eink screen and a little less functionality was more of a selling feature for why I should get this over a flip phone or an iPhone or anything else that isn't one of those two things.
I wonder if any custom ROMs will support this. No third-party apps is a dealbreaker, but a tiny phone running full Android would be well worth it for me! Too bad there's no headphone jack or SD...
I wonder if any custom ROMs will support this. No third-party apps is a dealbreaker, but a tiny phone running full Android would be well worth it for me! Too bad there's no headphone jack or SD card support though.
I used the LP2 for a few years and have mixed feelings. My main complaint (and the thing that ultimately drove me back to an Android) is the lackluster music and podcast tools. My phone is...
I used the LP2 for a few years and have mixed feelings. My main complaint (and the thing that ultimately drove me back to an Android) is the lackluster music and podcast tools. My phone is typically 0.5% for calling/texting and 99.5% a music and podcast device and I simply couldn't get used to the super basic non-configurable way those tools work on LightOS.
Since it's running Android I was able to jailbreak it and install better podcast and music apps, but it was too cumbersome to switch back and forth between LightOS and the underlying Android system whenever I wanted to use them. I also bought a couple stand-alone music players (I had an old Sansa Clip running Rockbox that I used for a while, some slightly newer player that could also run Rockbox, I tried out a Hiby R2II, and a Chinese Android-based DAP) but those aren't usually very good for Podcasts at all (they don't save which episodes you've listened to or your progress within an episode). The Chinese DAP came closest since I could install AntennaPod, but it was running some insanely old version of Android that came with its own issues and incompatibilities.
I also agree with the other commenter(s) who said the lack of e-ink on the LP3 is a real downer, and that $800 is a truly insane price point for this thing. The LP2 was already really pushing it at $300.
Ive been using the Light Phone II full-time for two years now and am pretty excited about this new product. My current phone still works great and I don't plan on switching soon, but seeing the...
Ive been using the Light Phone II full-time for two years now and am pretty excited about this new product. My current phone still works great and I don't plan on switching soon, but seeing the unique camera and the fact that is can be opened makes me hopeful. Repairability is my only gripe with the current model, although I haven't had any reason to open it up yet. Battery is still going strong!
Like others on this thread I must mention the price tag.. holy moly. I think they will quickly realize that $800 is an insane asking price. I personally think $400 (even $450) would be a reasonable full retail price for what you're getting. I hope this model supports Signal
The lack of support for Signal is the single biggest reservation I have with the dumbphone concept. I can go back to logging my workouts by hand, using a standalone GPS or even digital camera, but...
The lack of support for Signal is the single biggest reservation I have with the dumbphone concept. I can go back to logging my workouts by hand, using a standalone GPS or even digital camera, but I just can't go from Signal back to SMS.
I'm aware of the Punkt phone supporting Signal, but when I looked up impressions a few years ago they were mixed.
I also looked at the punkt but just wasn't a fan of the numpad typing. Dumbphones in general seem to be at a point of each one having some good features but missing others. The Light Phone 3 has 6...
I also looked at the punkt but just wasn't a fan of the numpad typing. Dumbphones in general seem to be at a point of each one having some good features but missing others. The Light Phone 3 has 6 gigs of ram and 128gb of storage, if there is a device to have signal this would certainly be it. Fingers crossed
I mean, at which point you cross the line between dumb and smart? Already have camera, NFC, fingerprint. Add possibility for apps and it's a smartphone.
I mean, at which point you cross the line between dumb and smart?
Already have camera, NFC, fingerprint. Add possibility for apps and it's a smartphone.
"Light phone" ... "6GB of RAM" - Something fishy... So basically you are buying (presumably) de-Googled dumbed down Android phone? I mean the idea of light phone is great! But if it's just normal...
"Light phone" ... "6GB of RAM" - Something fishy...
So basically you are buying (presumably) de-Googled dumbed down Android phone?
I mean the idea of light phone is great! But if it's just normal smartphone that has artificially limited functions, it may not be the right way to do it.
I love the idea of this, my problem is I always need/want to use at least a few apps, but it's difficult to really have any kind of "inbetween" device between this and a full smartphone because...
I love the idea of this, my problem is I always need/want to use at least a few apps, but it's difficult to really have any kind of "inbetween" device between this and a full smartphone because that defeats the purpose. As much as many of them suck and probably worsen our lives, apps really do prove quite useful in a lot of situations. I wish it was easy to live without them.
I wonder if they will allow side loading of apps since it’s running android. The biggest draw of the Light phone II was the e-ink display and small size. I honestly wish they had just refreshed...
I wonder if they will allow side loading of apps since it’s running android. The biggest draw of the Light phone II was the e-ink display and small size. I honestly wish they had just refreshed that device with newer network bands and usb-C.
If they allow side loading of apps (so I can have my 2 factor authentication apps) I’d be very tempted to use it. That price tag ($800) is insanely tough to swallow though. The $400 early adopter/pre-order price is more in line with what I think is a better value proposition.
It is running the underlying Android we will be building the LightOS on top of, but it currently only has a prototype LightOS app. The prototype helped us commit to our software architecture, ensuring it will be fast enough. It also enables us explore gestures like scrolling on the new screen. We've been experimenting with building the LightOS keyboard natively, and will continue to finesse this. It also has a slideshow where we were able to load different interface mocks to begin to fine tune how we want those to look. The process of integrating the full LightOS functionality will take months.
For such a a functionally limited device it seems really odd to have it cost $400 and be fat enough to feel like half a deck of cards in your pocket. If I was in the market for a tiny phone like this, I feel like I’d want it to basically be a Zoolander phone, or as close to it as is ergonomic. Aside from the better digital hygiene thing, one of the big perks of not having a traditional smartphone with me would just be freeing up the pocket space and having cleaner lines on my trousers.
Aside from note-taking, I feel like a cellular Apple Watch fulfills what this promises (minus the camera) but much better, much easier to carry around, and for about the same price.
This is the issue with almost all new entries into a market. They just don't have the tech base or the economies of scale to compete with established brands from a feature to price point comparison. I don't think that's a completely unreasonable number given the size of their operation and the expectation of the size of the market, but there's no way they can get anywhere close to a budget smart phone.
I wonder if Daylight might tackle this product category once they’ve established their tablet market. The rLCD display seems like a great use case for something like that, especially if they make it double as a phone-shaped ereader. The BookTok girlies are really into that Boox Palma thing right now.
Ooh, I like the look of Daylight! Have you used one? That’s really tempting for me, too.
I haven’t used it. I have too much clutter in my house and not enough money in the bank account to go buying new devices or I’d probably try it out. But I’m excited to see where it goes.
You can replicate a similar effect on iPhone and iPad, Color Filters, Reduce White Point, Turn on Night Shift.
Not quite because the Daylight uses reflected light to project through the screen rather than having to light a backlight. The battery life advantage is huge and it’s supposed to be good for eye strain too.
$800, actually - it's currently half off as a special intro offer. Which just reinforces your point, I think.
That is insane. $400 made it nuts but maybe justifiable as an overpriced hipster bauble. $800 for something like this is basically just the Williamsburg equivalent of pointless, vapid luxury consumption. You could get a Nokia dumb phone for $50-$60.
It'd definitely niche, but I don't see what's "vapid" about it?
I've been looking into that since I read this article a few days ago. There are KaiOS phones that work in the United States. The Nokia 2780 comes to mind and is a flip phone (with apps and such). This Light Phone is simply way too expensive for doing very few things. I just can't justify it. You, however, said it best:
The smarts on the phones are what makes the good cameras good. It’s a ton of post processing at work. If you just took the data that hits the sensor you’d be not that much better than a good flip phone cameras. Unfortunately these two functions can’t be disentangled.
Yeah the Light Phone is a cool concept and I’m sure it fits some people’s needs well, but if I were to go on a “phone diet” I’d probably go for a cellular Apple Watch paired with AirPods for calls/music and a nice compact digital camera for photo duty.
$799 seems like a very big price tag for what is essentially a bit of a dumb phone. Even the "reduced" price, $399, seems like a lot for how little you get - why not just buy a budget smartphone and disable whatever stuff you don't want to use?
That’s just how niche devices are. The bigger you get, the more you benefit from economies of scale. A niche dumb phone will never be able to be remotely competitively on specs. You get it because it does what you want.
What I don’t like is the chonk. For a dumb phone it sure takes up pocket space. $700 seems perfectly reasonable as a price, if it works well.
Yeah, the size is an interesting comparison.
My iPhone 12 mini is 131.5 x 64.2 x 7.4, while the LP3 is 106 x 71.5 x 12 - that’ll likely feel a little odd in my hand at first.
The thing about smartphones is that they’re really, really great. There are literally hundreds of possible useful edge cases that smartphones can fill a gap that no prior existing technology filled, and the average person probably utilizes at least a dozen of them. Maps, texting, music, calculator are the obvious ones that you can replicate and provide alternatives for. But banking apps, hiking trackers, cross device notes and tasks, home controls, airline boarding passes, tickets, nutrition tracking, food delivery, photo editing, language learning, and more and more are all things you can do on a smartphone that isn’t particularly addictive or damaging but does have massive potential benefits. You’re giving up a lot of genuine utility in order to prevent yourself from having access to the damaging brain wiring addictive applications, and that is a very tough sell for the vast majority of people imo, including people who do have genuine technological addictions and even many of those who would openly admit to it and even are actively seeking solutions.
The best solution for my overuse of addictive/maladaptive smartphone functions has been to become so busy during work that I'd never consider them. And its corollary, become so sick of technology and synchronous/async communication during work hours that the infinite info-hose becomes aversive during personal time.
As a hyper-productive degenerate who prioritizes being present and intentional with my household, fwiw. :) The smartphone has been a massive upgrade to my life.
Do these phones have any support for non-SMS two-factor authenticaion?
I'm guessing not, but various services support generating these tokens. 1Password (although not free) can do so, as can Bitwarden's premium service.
Does the phone allow you to install third-party apps at all? The marketing materials make it seem like it only supports the pre-loaded apps.
Yeah, I think you're right. I was just pointing out that it's not necessarily necessary to generate those tokens with a smartphone; there are desktop software solutions for that.
Worth noting, however, that using 2FA provided by the same service that stores your passwords themselves is basically making it not two-factor anymore. So you lose any security benefits thereof.
There’s a lot of discussion and disagreement around this topic.
1Password’s blog, which is generally pretty good, has one such write up 1Password and 2FA: Is it wrong to store passwords and one-time codes together?
I think the security advantage of 2FA is simply that the 2FA can't be leaked because it rotates every 15s, not that it's from a second device.
These are both security advantages of 2FA -- though it being from a second device is definitely a big part of the advantage of 2FA, given that it's what the name refers to in the first place. It rotating is necessary to make it not just the same thing as another password, though.
I was probably wrong to say you lose any security benefits of 2FA in my original comment, it's definitely more secure than not having it at all, but you definitely lose some of the security advantage by not having it be a true second factor (though as the 1Password quote from the other reply points out, you also lose that by having your password manager and 2FA app on the same device at all - which I guess means I have true 2FA when I log in from my laptop, but not when I log in from my phone).
Interesting
For context, most services implement a standard 2FA token generation algorithm (TOTP), so they only really have to implement it once to work with every service.
Equally, the USB dongles which you press to authenticate are another standard (FIDO), so they only have to implement that once as well … fingers crossed, I suppose.
On one hand this seems like a decent evolution of the "dumb" phone(I also did not research them that much and so I don't know what is their privacy impact which seems it would have been either a major pro or a massive con here).
On the other it is not really for me personally. Despite my hate for "smartphones" I don't think the massive downsides(some of this device wants to address) are inherent in a pocket size computer capable of connecting to a cellular network. They were simply added.
Personally I would love well supported, decent hw, e-ink, small form factor pocket computer capable of running mainline Linux kernel just like that.
I really enjoyed experimenting with the Light Phone II earlier this year. It was a nice chance to drop away from a lot of life’s stresses.
Ultimately, I ended up moving back to my iPhone 12, largely for the camera. Everything else was pretty manageable with the phone and a small laptop in a bag. (I still carry around the laptop anyway)
I’m excited for this iteration, as the change in screen technology may make the user input a little friendlier, and the camera may solve my greatest issue with version 2.
This may be defeating the purpose, but do you know if they are planning to support anything like the Strava app? I don't use my phone for much and this seems like a perfect fit but I do like the bike/swim tracking features I currently have. Thanks for sharing, seems like a great product!
I’m not aware of any plans to support Strava - I think the limited battery capacity of earlier versions would be a big detractor to keeping the radio on that often. This one has about 3x the battery capacity, but it’s also using a more power-hungry display, so we’ll see.
I think they’ve announced plans to integrate Spotify in the past, but I don’t know if there’s been any concrete progress on that.
Ah makes sense, I wonder if I could combo with a garmin watch and get all I need.
The line between bespoke hardware product and an Android application launcher with a color filter gets blurrier every day. I get the appeal of dedicated hardware, but an eink screen and a little less functionality was more of a selling feature for why I should get this over a flip phone or an iPhone or anything else that isn't one of those two things.
I wonder if any custom ROMs will support this. No third-party apps is a dealbreaker, but a tiny phone running full Android would be well worth it for me! Too bad there's no headphone jack or SD card support though.
I used the LP2 for a few years and have mixed feelings. My main complaint (and the thing that ultimately drove me back to an Android) is the lackluster music and podcast tools. My phone is typically 0.5% for calling/texting and 99.5% a music and podcast device and I simply couldn't get used to the super basic non-configurable way those tools work on LightOS.
Since it's running Android I was able to jailbreak it and install better podcast and music apps, but it was too cumbersome to switch back and forth between LightOS and the underlying Android system whenever I wanted to use them. I also bought a couple stand-alone music players (I had an old Sansa Clip running Rockbox that I used for a while, some slightly newer player that could also run Rockbox, I tried out a Hiby R2II, and a Chinese Android-based DAP) but those aren't usually very good for Podcasts at all (they don't save which episodes you've listened to or your progress within an episode). The Chinese DAP came closest since I could install AntennaPod, but it was running some insanely old version of Android that came with its own issues and incompatibilities.
I also agree with the other commenter(s) who said the lack of e-ink on the LP3 is a real downer, and that $800 is a truly insane price point for this thing. The LP2 was already really pushing it at $300.
Ive been using the Light Phone II full-time for two years now and am pretty excited about this new product. My current phone still works great and I don't plan on switching soon, but seeing the unique camera and the fact that is can be opened makes me hopeful. Repairability is my only gripe with the current model, although I haven't had any reason to open it up yet. Battery is still going strong!
Like others on this thread I must mention the price tag.. holy moly. I think they will quickly realize that $800 is an insane asking price. I personally think $400 (even $450) would be a reasonable full retail price for what you're getting. I hope this model supports Signal
The lack of support for Signal is the single biggest reservation I have with the dumbphone concept. I can go back to logging my workouts by hand, using a standalone GPS or even digital camera, but I just can't go from Signal back to SMS.
I'm aware of the Punkt phone supporting Signal, but when I looked up impressions a few years ago they were mixed.
I also looked at the punkt but just wasn't a fan of the numpad typing. Dumbphones in general seem to be at a point of each one having some good features but missing others. The Light Phone 3 has 6 gigs of ram and 128gb of storage, if there is a device to have signal this would certainly be it. Fingers crossed
The problem is nobody agrees on which features are worth having :)
Precisely!
I mean, at which point you cross the line between dumb and smart?
Already have camera, NFC, fingerprint. Add possibility for apps and it's a smartphone.
"Light phone" ... "6GB of RAM" - Something fishy...
So basically you are buying (presumably) de-Googled dumbed down Android phone?
I mean the idea of light phone is great! But if it's just normal smartphone that has artificially limited functions, it may not be the right way to do it.
Yeah, I’m guessing that high amount of RAM is a limitation with the Qualcomm chipset that they selected.
That’s entirely conjecture on my end, though.
I love the idea of this, my problem is I always need/want to use at least a few apps, but it's difficult to really have any kind of "inbetween" device between this and a full smartphone because that defeats the purpose. As much as many of them suck and probably worsen our lives, apps really do prove quite useful in a lot of situations. I wish it was easy to live without them.
I wonder if they will allow side loading of apps since it’s running android. The biggest draw of the Light phone II was the e-ink display and small size. I honestly wish they had just refreshed that device with newer network bands and usb-C.
If they allow side loading of apps (so I can have my 2 factor authentication apps) I’d be very tempted to use it. That price tag ($800) is insanely tough to swallow though. The $400 early adopter/pre-order price is more in line with what I think is a better value proposition.
I don't know if it is running Android? I haven't seen any word of that.
From their blog post about prototyping.