Want to disconnect from the networked world? Get yourself this phone

Imagine owning a phone that cost you a couple of thousands, yet does next to nothing.

The Light Phone 2 is a minimalist phone, about the size of a bank card, and it is designed to allow you to disconnect from the networked world.

There isn’t much to talk about the hardware. It comes with a Qualcomm MSM8909W processor backed by 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. It has an e-ink touch screen as the display and 4G support. That’s it. There are no cameras, no fancy features, which means no newsfeeds or social media apps.

It has tools though, tools such as an alarm clock, support for text messages, a feature that wasn’t available in the original Light Phone, an option to listen to music and a few more tools. So why buy it?

The obvious reason is that it helps you disconnect from the Internet. If you want to escape and spend more time doing you, then this is definitely what you should be looking at.

Second is the design. This is an ultra-minimalist device, making it extremely appealing.

It comes with a 500mAh battery, which could tempt you to write it off because phones today that are worth talking about must come with batteries that hit 1,000+mAh, but the truth is that this phone doesn’t need the 1,000+mAh battery.

The display is an e-ink display, and there are no background running apps, so, ideally, it doesn’t need a lot of power to get it through the day.

It runs on a modified version of Android, and there are ideas around adding a few more tools, like navigation and the ability to book a ride home, but nothing new has been committed to fully.

It is supposed to ship next month, though the company making them has often been hit with manufacturing delays. Prices start at around Sh25, 000 for Indiegogo campaign backers, though others may end up paying around Sh40, 000 for it when it goes public.