Dumb feature phones are back and how! The brand licensee of Nokia mobile phones, HMD which is short for Human Mobile Devices, has released a new feature phone that carries its “dumbness” as a proud badge of honour hoping that it will turn around people jacked up on social media to take a pause and go socialise with other people in the real world. To make real connections, if you will.
The new HMD phone is called…get this…”The Boring Phone”. For real.
The Boring Phone is the result of a joint partnership between Dutch brewing company Heineken, US brand and retail marketplace Bodega, and of course, the Finnish brand HMD — which is actually “producing” these phones. It’s one of the many partnerships that HMD has embarked on, in its fresh coming as an “independent” mobile phone brand (that also also makes Nokia phones on the side), the other being with Mattel on a Barbie-themed feature phone.
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The Boring Phone experience
The Boring Phone is actually based on the Nokia 2660 Flip. The difference is that the Heineken version has a transparent casing and holographic stickers “reminiscent of mobile phones of the early 2000s.” It supports 4G, though, it can only send and receive calls and text messages — the bare “basics needed for a great night out.” Modern-day frills from social media to internet browsing aren’t available on The Boring Phone. You do get “Snake”, a game that Nokia die-hards can recognise and attest to.
“In an era where smartphones offer endless distractions, this device deliberately lacks internet, social media, and apps,” HMD posted on X (the platform previously known as Twitter), adding that, “Our goal? To demonstrate that there’s much more to social life when you’re not constantly connected.”
Spec-wise, the feature phone has a 2.8-inch QVGA display on the inside and a 1.77-inch cover screen. It has 128MB of internal storage which is further expandable through a micro-SD card. You get a VGA (0.3MP) camera in this feature phone. The battery is a removable 1,450mAh promising a “week of standby time and up to 20 hours of talk time.” You also get FM radio and a headphone jack.
Unlike other mobile phones, you can’t go online or even an offline store to buy The Boring Phone. The trio will just “give them away to revellers around the world,” the same reason why only 5,000 units will ever be produced. Should you miss out on the free giveaway, a smartphone app is also in the works and ready to launch sometime in June to give you “The Boring Phone experience.”
