Dear readers, I have confession: I have a disease that calls them younger “Brain rot,” Inability to think deeply after a lot of passing on my phone. These days, it is difficult to end a book.
Many people have this problem. Many, a group of simple technical products that strive to rid us of deviations have been born from AI pinthe Now finish Artificially smart chest tubes that took notes, to phones with only basic features.
The last example, $ 600 Light Phone IIIFrom Brooklyn Start-UP, is a phone that has been stripped of anything barely. The latest version, which started shipping in March and was appointed for a broader version in July, can make calls, send texts, take pictures, map trends, play music, podcast, and not to do a lot.
There is no web browser. There is also no application store, which means that there is no Uber to ride, nor stagnation or social media. There is no even email.
“You use it when you need it, and when you repeat it, it disappears in your life,” said Kaiwei Tang, CEO of light, a young woman who has developed multiple light repetitions over the past nine years. “We get a lot of customers who tell us that they feel less tense, they become more productive, and they become creative.”
I was curious to see if a light phone can treat me from brain rot, so I used it as my basic phone for a week. There were moments I enjoyed. While waiting for a train or resting in the gym or eating on its own, I did not tend to stare on the phone screen, and I felt more attention to surrounding areas. The phone calls seemed nice and clear. The MAPS app has a good job that moves me all over the city.
He reminded me of simpler times when we used phones primarily to speak before putting them to focus on other tasks.
But throughout the week, the negative aspects of the Dumber have fell in my enjoyment, and for everything I felt more tense and less. I suddenly found myself unable to enter a train station, search for a new restaurant name or control the garage door.
Some of this has nothing to do with the same light phone, which is a great product, and more than that related to how the community as a whole depends on the features of advanced smartphones.
Here’s how to run a weekly, move and come up with a low technical phone.
Start
When I prepared my light phone review unit during the weekend, the phone, which looks like a black rectangular board, was very naked. The list of the phone was a black screen that displays a white text list for its features: the phone, camera, photo and warning album. To add more tools, I had to use a web browser on my computer to access a dashboard, where I can install features like Maps, Notepad and Timer.
Now that you are ready to go, I was determined to live, at least for a while, without my iPhone.
Mobility to work
On Monday morning, you started to move to work, and took a train from Auckland, California, to San Francisco. When I got to the station, I realized that I could not enter without my iPhone because years ago I converted the actual transmission corridor, the Clipper card, into a virtual one stored in the mobile phone portfolio of my smartphone.
The light phone lacks a mobile portfolio to download the virtual transport card, so I was shameful to the house to get my iPhone and eventually appeared to the office for half an hour.
Go to the gym
She ran to a similar obstacle at one night in the rocky gym. To enter, members use their phones to log in to the gym and create a temporary strip code that is wiped at the entrance. Since the light phone lacks a web browser, I could not create a tip code, so I had to wait in the queue in the reception office.
Send text messages to friends and take pictures
I added some of my closest friends to the address book on a light phone and sent them text messages explaining my experience. Writing on the keyboard was partially slow because there was no automatic correction feature to fix printing errors. As a result, TERSE conversations were.
This was followed by the fun when I sent people pictures. The photos were bad lighting and grains, as if they were produced with a phone camera of at least 15 years.
“Reaction!” A friend said in response to a blurred photo of my daughter.
“Wow, this is bad,” another friend said about a faintly lit picture of the Curge, Max.
Light’s founders said they are proud of the light phone camera, which has a feeling of nostalgia.
Operation of missions
One afternoon, I had to drop the return of Amazon in the UPS store. I chose the most convenient shipping option, which included displaying the fast response icon for the survey.
The problem? The light phone had no e -mail or web browser to download the code. Instead, I downloaded it on my computer screen and cut a modest image with the phone.
When I brought the package to UPS and the photo was shown, I grabbed my breath, hoping that the image would be clear enough. Ups the UPS employee carry the scanner up, and after three attempts, I heard a whistle and printed shipping mark.
What a relief, but also, what is a problem.
Lunch date
Another day after day, my wife and I went out for an improvised lunch. I supported the car and then I had to ask my wife to use her iPhone to close our garage door with the application Myq. (Our physical garage door has stopped working for years.)
After that, we were trying to remember the name of the new Sushi restaurant that we recently read on the dining blog. I couldn’t help dig the blog post on a light phone. In the end, we guessed and ended in the wrong restaurant. It was good to have lunch together without luring my e -mail checking.
The bottom line
Although I admire the goal of a light phone, my experience shows that there is nothing we can do realistically or buy it to return us to simpler times. Many aspects of our lives, including wandering in the city, working, paying the price of things and controlling home appliances, revolves around our very capable smartphones.
This light phone experience reminded me of drafting: Pay a lot to get a tougher experience.
I can’t think about many people whose functions allow them to use a light phone realistically as their only phone. Many of us depend on tools like Slack and email to communicate.
The light phone may be more convenient as a secondary entertainment phone, similar to a weekend, for people to separate them when they are out of work. But until then, the camera quality may be a deal cutter for some.
Mr. Tang, CEO of Light, admitted that the light phone was not for everyone, but added that parents had thought about buying the phone for their children less dispersed at school. The company is also working to add more tools, such as mobile phone payments and the ability to request an Lyft.
