Remember when the ‘smartphone’ just meant that a phone had internet connectivity and an app store? That’s literally how we described the first smartphone – but that criteria is long-gone. Phones today are REALLY smart – almost too smart. They have powerful processors, complex algorithms running the cameras, and are almost all filled with at least one form of an AI assistant that goes above and beyond what voice assistants could do 10 years ago. Phones today are deadly smart – and that might just be scary to some people.
There’s no denying that smartphones are incredibly useful, but there’s a case to be made for phones that just retain the bare basics. After all, you wouldn’t be able to accidentally add a journalist to a group chat discussing national war plans if you had a secure ‘dumb’ phone, right? Well, for people who want a phone that does exactly what it needs to do without being a powerful, data-guzzling, soul-sucking, time-wasting, addictive slab of metal, the Light Phone III is the latest dumb-phone on the block. Building on over a decade-long legacy, the much-awaited third edition of the phone comes back with some design refinements, including a black-and-white OLED screen instead of the e-ink one from previous generations, and now even a camera that gives you more of a phone experience without necessarily feeling like a compromise. TikTok and Instagram not included.
Designer: Light
The e-paper screen is gone, replaced with a 3.92-inch black-and-white OLED display. It’s sharper, faster, and more legible in any lighting, which might sound like a small thing—until you remember how sluggish and washed-out the previous screen could get. Navigation is now snappier, typing is less of a chore, and the interface feels less like a prototype and more like a statement.
Internally, it’s grown up too. The bump to 6GB of RAM (from just 1GB in the II) makes everything smoother. A Qualcomm SM4450 chip powers it, paired with 128GB of storage, which is overkill for a phone that won’t let you install TikTok or stream Netflix. But it’s welcome overkill—enough headroom for basic tasks like messaging, navigation, music, podcasts, and taking the occasional photo without freezing mid-action.
Yeah, there’s a camera now. Just one. And it doesn’t try to be clever. No HDR. No night mode. Just a fixed focal length and a two-stage shutter button like the ones you’d find on an old Canon PowerShot. It’s more about documenting than capturing “content,” which feels radically refreshing in a world obsessed with perfect angles and AI touch-ups.
The form factor itself is a callback to a time when phones fit in your hand and your jeans pocket. It’s about the width of an iPhone but shorter—compact enough to text one-handed, substantial enough to not feel like a toy. It’s also heavier than the Light Phone II, thanks to a larger, user-replaceable battery and a more premium build. That’s right—user-replaceable battery. Try finding that on any mainstream phone these days without grabbing a heat gun and a prayer.
There’s a fingerprint sensor embedded in the power button, stereo speakers, a USB-C port, and an NFC chip for contactless payments. The GPS uses Here instead of Google Maps, which means it actually honors your privacy instead of mining your location history. That’s a pattern here—every feature feels intentional, stripped down to its most ethical version.
If the budget iPhone 16E’s price made you squirm, the Light Phone III’s $799 price tag should really sting. That’s nearly three times the launch cost of the Light Phone II, and even with the $599 pre-order deal, it’s clearly not for price-conscious buyers. But that’s also kind of the point: the Light Phone III isn’t trying to compete on specs or price. It’s offering a different contract entirely—less screen, fewer distractions, more peace. For a price that a small subset of people will pay just so that they can stay connected without their device collecting bucketloads of data on them for training/marketing purposes.
The post This $799 Phone Won’t Steal Your Time or Your Data – Meet the Light Phone III first appeared on Yanko Design.