Digital Dayz continues its quest to seek out anything that might help us use technology more wisely. So we are naturally excited to preview another mobile phone option that shows promise in this regard. The Light Phone III, shipping next February 2025, will be the third iteration of this minimalist device, featuring upgraded hardware, some new tools, and new pricing.
About Light Phone, Inc.
According to their website, Light Phone, Inc. was founded by Joe Hollier and Kaiwei Tang, “an artist and product designer who met in a Google experimental program in 2014.” Through this program, they realized that the proliferation of ad-driven apps on smartphones “will never align with our actual quality of life.” So in 2015, they launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the development of the original Light Phone.
It was a success and the first Light Phone was shipped in January 2017. They repeated this process in 2018 and soon released the much improved current iteration, Light Phone II.
About Light Phone III
Light Phone III is now available for pre-order and offers upgraded hardware, more tools and capability over Light Phone II. Since it hasn’t shipped yet, we are unable to use and evaluate the phone ourselves, but online sources provide plenty of details to give us a good idea of what to expect.
Hardware
Light Phone III includes some impressive specs for a device of this type, all in a diminutive form factor of only 4.17 x 2.8 x .47 inches. This is slightly bigger than Light Phone II, more of a “Blackberry size” now according to Tang, vs. the previous credit card size. It also weighs a little more, though still only .27 lbs. This version of the phone comes with an upgraded metal frame which adds durability and just enough weight to feel sturdy.
Display
Photo source: Light
This device features a matte glass screen and a new black and white OLED display. This is an upgrade from Light Phone II’s E-ink type screen, which excels at reading but suffers from lag or sluggishness while swiping or typing. These displays are readable in sunlight, have low power requirements, and feature high visibility and contrast overall. Brightness is controlled by a wheel on the side. Proponents note that they also do not emit any blue light like smartphone displays.
Tech Specs
The chipset is Qualcomm’s SnapDragon 4 Gen 2 SM 4450. Nerds might be interested to know that this CPU has two performance cores running at 2.2GHz and six efficiency cores at 2.0GHz.
It also includes an Adreno 613 GPU, 128GB of flash storage, 6GB of RAM, and a removable 1800 mAH battery (double what Light Phone II had). The website says it is “too early…to estimate any precise battery life [for Light Phone III] at this stage [but] we are confident it should last through a full day of normal usage, and hopefully much more.”
It has two microphones (noise canceling) and two stereo speakers, GPS, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC capability, and fingerprint ID, but no 3.5mm audio jack (Bluetooth or USB-C wired headphones can be used). NFC is not used at this time but is there with the idea of adding future capability such as payments.
Photo source: Light
Another unique feature is a clickable wheel on the side used for navigation. And it is also the first version to come with a flashlight. While it does come with a USB-C to USB-C cable, apparently it does not come with a power adapter for charging.
Light Phone III claims to be designed to last longer than smartphones with their planned obsolescence model. Accordingly, it has an easily replaceable battery, USB port, and screen.
Camera
Light Phone III is the first version to feature a camera (8MP front/50MP rear), though it is not quite like your typical smartphone camera. It has its own dedicated two-step shutter button, with center focus and a fixed focal length, similar to older point and shoot style cameras.
The user depresses the button once to focus, then again to take the picture. The front camera is not currently used but is there to allow possible video calling capability in the future. For now, Tang says, “there’s no editing or sharing, just documenting the moment if you need to.”
Software
Light Phone III runs on custom firmware dubbed LightOS, which provides a simple interface built around a completely user-customizable menu of optional tools, none of which come pre-installed. Available tools currently include Alarm, Calculator, Calendar, Directory, Directions, Hotspot, Music, Notes/Voice Memo, Podcast, or Timer. Like similar devices, there is no available web browser, social media apps, news, or email.
Photo source: Light.
The phone is managed by a dashboard website that allows the user to add or remove the optional tools, and import contacts. Three of the more advanced tools including Directions, Directory, and Voice-to-Text, rely on other platforms’ technology to function, but do so privately, and according to the developers, are paid for and included with the cost of the phone, not your personal data.
The developers claim that this phone is future-proof by being able to receive meaningful software updates for many years, without asking you to upgrade to a new product.
Carriers
The Light Phone is carrier unlocked and takes a nano-SIM card. Buyers can choose from 3 available Light plans, or online compatibility checker lets you check your region of the world for compatibility with your favorite carrier before purchasing. For the United States, Light Phone III is said to work with Light, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon , Ting, Mint, and US Mobile. Other carriers and carrier partners are listed as not-compatible or “try at your own risk.”
The available Light plans use AT&T towers, are contract-free, and include:
• $30 + tax / month: Unlimited calls & messages with 1GB of data.
• $45 + tax / month: Unlimited calls & messages with 5GB of data.
• $70 / month: Unlimited calls, messages, and data (throttling after 22GB then 50GB).
Coverage map from https://www.thelightphone.com/plans.
Because they are unlocked, some users use them as a second phone, swapping the SIM card in and out of their smartphone as desired. Users can also port their existing phone number over or get a new one.
Price
Light Phone III is currently available for pre-order at a limited time special price of $499.00 at the time of this writing (October 2024). This is up $200.00 from Light Phone II, but it is an all-new, larger, more capable device in many ways. Regular price will be $799.00, but it remains to be seen where pre-order and final pricing will go from here, based on demand. Already, critics online are balking at the higher final price which is similar to full-featured smartphones.
Pros & Cons
As with any device with a rather narrowly defined use case, decisions are made on what to include and what to exclude, what it will do and what it won’t do. Here are a few things we like and don’t like about Light Phone III.
Pros: 3 things we like about Light Phone III
1. Utilitarian design
We feel that the kind of person that this kind of device will appeal to will appreciate the utilitarian design of this phone. From the smaller, blocky case, to the simple, menu based interface, it truly offers a no-frills alternative to the increasingly large and ostentatious phones on the market today which can be insanely expensive, fragile, and greatly over-designed for the simple user’s use case.
2. Navigation capability
Even for some of the most conservative mobile tech Luddites, GPS navigation is a welcome capability in modern life. This phone offers not only GPS maps, but a Directory tool which provides a mobile phone book when traveling. This is a feature not always available, at least in a usable format, on comparably configured flip-phones.
Photo source: Light.
3. Some basic added media capability.
Historically, most of us have been glad for many varied mobile devices that have been developed such as watches, calculators, music players (remember the Sony Walkman, or the Apple iPod?), cassette players and other sound or voice recorders, cameras, and of course the mobile phone.
But it has become increasingly difficult to carry them all around! Therefore, the way modern mobile devices have combined many of these functions into one has been a largely welcome development. This simple device offers a camera, music player, and even a podcast player, providing basic no-frills mobile media handling capability without opening the door to the world of untrusted, data-harvesting smartphone apps.
Cons: 3 things we don’t like about Light Phone III
1. Light Phone III doesn’t display images in texts.
We understand that this is a welcome feature in the typical use case—indeed very core to its value proposition as a simple device. Nevertheless, many kinds of images are used in communications, especially in texting, so this could make for a fairly unpleasant texting experience, unless your circle of friends is content to limit themselves largely to plain SMS text. The product website says that MMS text messages can be configured to be forwarded to your email, but they won’t be received.
1. Photo handling isn’t clear yet.
Will Light Phone 3 offer photo viewing on the device? Will we download photos from the dashboard or retrieve them by plugging a USB cable into our computer to copy them off? So far, we can’t tell exactly how this will work. (This may not end up remaining a “con” depending on what we discover).
3. No SD card
We realize SD cards are not necessary, and many don’t miss them. But they do offer a reliable way to store and move data between a mobile device and another device. They can also be used for personal, hard-copy backups. This is not a dealbreaker in our view, just a disappointment.
Conclusion
Light Phone III has a strong value proposition as a minimalist device that incorporates quite a few “power-user” features for the one who wants to limit tech engagement while embracing it’s most useful applications. If implemented well upon final release, this could be the device that helps you free yourself from the most distracting aspects of modern mobile phone technology.
[1] See The Light Phone 3 is a little less light – but a lot more useful. The Verge. June 11, 2024. https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/11/24176026/light-phone-3-launch-price-release-date.
[1] See the faq at https://www.thelightphone.com/faq.
[1] See The Light Phone 3 is a little less light – but a lot more useful. The Verge. June 11, 2024.
[1] Light Phone II is listed by Verizon as an officially supported unlocked device. We assume Light Phone III will be as well. See https://www.verizon.com/unlocked-smartphones/light-phone-ii-unlocked/.
