Minimalism stretched to the purpose of frustration

Like untold tens of millions of smartphone customers, I’ve a little bit of an issue. I’ve been attempting, with middling success, to be extra aware about how I take advantage of my telephone. I’ll usually uninstall varied social media apps (however reinstall them later), and I’ve disconnected all my work instruments until I’m touring particularly for the job. I don’t play video games with out intention or doomscroll very a lot. However I nonetheless discover myself mindlessly reaching for it when there’s a second to fill, and I don’t love that behavior. I don’t suppose I’m fully hooked on my iPhone; my Display screen Time stats put each day utilization round two to 3 hours. That’s lower than I’ve seen lots of people submit on social media, nevertheless it’s nonetheless vital.

I’ve been intrigued by the Light Phone III since I first noticed some previews for it final yr. Because the identify suggests, it’s the third telephone by Brooklyn-based startup Gentle, and the ethos stays the identical. It has no “infinite scroll” apps like e-mail, social media, an internet browser or most every part else that defines a contemporary smartphone. It’s designed for fast interactions so you’ll be able to decide it up, reply to a name or message, possibly get instructions or placed on a track after which get again to life. Nonetheless, there are loads of enhancements in comparison with prior Gentle Telephones that made it really feel much more viable to me. Particularly, there’s a digicam, the display screen is OLED as a substitute of E Ink and the broader, extra responsive show is best suited to textual content enter. It additionally seems to be cool in a minimalist method, and has some properly responsive bodily buttons in a world when these have gotten more and more uncommon.

I’ve been utilizing the $599 Gentle Cellphone III since late March, and my plan was to totally decide to it — however the practicality of doing so was surprisingly tough. Based mostly on my expertise, it’s going to be a tricky promote for lots of people who use a smartphone for fundamentals or issues solely particular apps can ship. The Gentle Cellphone III isn’t fairly able to be most individuals’s solely system, however I want it may very well be.

The Gentle philosophy

On the whole, the Gentle Cellphone III jogs my memory a little bit little bit of the very first iPhone — a tool with possibly 16 built-in apps and nothing else. After all, the iPhone had time-wasters like YouTube, an e-mail consumer and an internet browser, however that system was not practically the attention-hog that trendy smartphones are. In the identical method, Gentle picked particular instruments that it feels most individuals will want whereas retaining every part as easy and bare-bones as potential. The concept is that as a substitute of a tool full of apps continually notifying you and attempting to seize your consideration, the Gentle Cellphone is targeted on intentional use so that you aren’t continually choosing up your telephone.

That exhibits up in a wide range of methods, from the essential block type issue to the truth that LightOS (primarily based on Android, however you’d by no means understand it) is actually white textual content on a black background. The one time you see coloration is if you happen to open the digicam or take a look at photographs. However an important factor is the extraordinarily primary set of instruments you’ll be able to set up on the system. Right here’s a full checklist along with the settings and telephone / textual content messages apps:

• Alarm

• Album

• Calculator

• Calendar

• Digicam

• Instructions

• Listing

• Hotspot

• Music

• Notes

• Podcasts

• Timer

In order for you, you’ll be able to actually simply have the telephone app, which additionally contains your contacts checklist and textual content messages. In 2025, that’s wildly sparse. And you’ll see by the above checklist that none of those are stuff you’re going to lose a number of time utilizing. The austere strategy doesn’t simply apply to the restricted set of instruments, both — it exhibits up in how every one is designed. For instance, the Alarm instrument doesn’t have a sleep button. If you happen to’re utilizing it as a get up name, you had higher rise up when it goes off.

{Hardware}

Earlier than digging into what utilizing this odd little system is like, let’s run via its minimalist {hardware}. The Gentle Cellphone III is a chunky rectangle of a telephone that’s considerably shorter and thicker than what I’m used to. It’s 12mm thick, in comparison with 7.8mm for the iPhone 16e or about 10mm for the Pixel 9a. However whereas the Gentle Cellphone III is about the identical width as a contemporary iPhone, it’s solely 106mm tall, which is shorter than, say, the iPhone 16e (147mm). That makes the telephone look so much bigger in photographs than it’s in actuality, as a result of we’re used to assuming a telephone features a 6-ish inch show. That’s not the case right here.

The entrance is dominated by the display screen, however I haven’t used a telephone with a show this small in years. It’s a 3.92-inch AMOLED panel with matte glass and 1,080 x 1,240 decision, and the remainder of the entrance is stuffed out by two giant bezels. The highest one homes an earpiece and selfie digicam, whereas the underside has a surprisingly solid-sounding speaker. On the again, you’ll discover the modest 5-megapixel digicam with a flash; the underside 60 % is the place the user-replaceable battery lives.

One other factor that makes the Gentle Cellphone stand out is its plethora of buttons, which is a rarity within the trendy period. There’s an influence button with a fingerprint sensor on the highest proper nook, however sadly that sensor hasn’t but been activated in LightOS. The appropriate facet has a house button, with round quantity up and down keys surrounding it. Close to the underside proper edge is a two-stage digicam button, which is a relatively stunning inclusion. Urgent it opens the digicam app it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, and you may push it midway right down to activate the middle focus level earlier than miserable all of it the best way to take your image. Lastly, on the higher left nook is a button that activates the flashlight; it’s surrounded by a dial you’ll be able to flip to regulate display screen brightness. I’ve by no means felt like I wanted my telephone’s flashlight sufficient for it to have a devoted button, and of all of the buttons that is the one I by accident activated essentially the most. However, the dial for display screen brightness is fairly helpful.

The Gentle Cellphone is powered by Qualcomm’s SM 4450 processor with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of inner storage. It additionally helps 5G networks along with LTE, and the telephone is rounded out with the standard array of sensors: GPS, Bluetooth 5.0 and NFC. And, in fact, there’s a USB-C port on the backside for charging and restricted connectivity with a pc.

For the reason that Gentle Cellphone’s battery is detachable, it’s not practically as giant as those you’ll discover in most trendy smartphones. You’ll naturally be doing so much much less with this telephone, although, so it’s not an enormous downside. I simply bought a number of days of use from the Gentle Cellphone until I used to be utilizing navigation so much. That drained the battery fairly rapidly, so if you happen to intend on utilizing it on your GPS on an extended automobile journey, be sure you have a charging port for it when you drive.

Going Gentle

Establishing a Gentle Cellphone III includes going to a web based dashboard the place you’ll activate your telephone. As soon as that’s completed, that is additionally the place you’ll be able to configure varied instruments and do issues like add music and podcasts. There are minimal settings to fiddle with on the telephone itself — you’ll be able to alter quantity for varied notifications just like the telephone ringer, alarms or media, or flip the hotspot on or off. There are the standard choices for managing Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections or updating the software program, nevertheless it’s a far slimmer menu than you’ll discover on an iPhone or Android system.

From the dashboard, I added the entire Gentle Cellphone’s obtainable instruments and dug into the method of transferring contacts and music over. I hoped that the telephone would simply present up as a USB system after I plugged it into my laptop so I might drag some MP3s over, however, alas, that’s not the case. Managing content material on the Gentle Cellphone requires utilizing the dashboard; it exhibits each instrument you’ve got put in and clicking on them permits you to add songs or import contacts.

This was the place I hit my first main friction level. I really like music and am a bit obsessive over it, so having the ability to play songs on the go is completely essential to me. I nonetheless purchase music on Bandcamp typically and now have an enormous library of MP3s from the pre-streaming days, so I had loads of tunes so as to add to my Gentle Cellphone. Certain, it wouldn’t be the identical as gaining access to the tens of millions of songs on Apple Music or Spotify, however I used to be okay with a little bit of a philosophical change. In any case, what number of songs do you really want at a time?

Seems the large concern isn’t having fewer songs — it’s how minimal each the music participant and track uploader are. On the dashboard, you’ll be able to add songs out of your laptop, however all of them get dumped in a single big playlist. You may re-order issues there, however that’s the one semblance of group. I had hoped that the Gentle Cellphone’s music participant would have an iPod type of interface so you would use tags to dig into artists and albums, however no such luck. You may seek for a track, and if you happen to faucet it to play it’ll play every part following — that was the one method I might approximate the expertise of listening to an album.

Making issues much more difficult is the truth that songs aren’t essentially uploaded to the telephone in any semblance of order. So even when your recordsdata are correctly named, that ordering isn’t at all times mirrored within the closing add. I resorted to including an album after which utilizing the online dashboard interface to verify the songs had been within the correct order. That’s worse than the expertise I had utilizing an iPod in 2003. To have to do that in 2025 is wild.

To be truthful, the Gentle Cellphone creators instructed me that this software program is a holdover from the Gentle Cellphone II, which might solely maintain 1GB of music, like an outdated iPod Shuffle. It wasn’t actually meant for looking a big library, however as a substitute was simply meant to present you a fast choice of tunes in a pinch. And the corporate is actively engaged on a brand new participant with artist/album sorting, customized playlists and letting you load recordsdata through USB-C. That might go a good distance in direction of making it extra helpful. The excellent news is that sound high quality was nice and I might pair my AirPods Professional with zero points.

One other fear I had was how the Gentle Cellphone’s mapping and navigation instruments would maintain up. I’m perpetually misplaced and likewise not too long ago moved, so I usually depend on turn-by-turn to determine the place I’m going. Whereas the Instructions instrument is kind of primary, it’s sufficient to get the job completed. Opening it up merely exhibits two fields to enter the place you’re and the place you’re going (it could additionally pull your present location through GPS). There’s additionally a selector for whether or not you’re driving, strolling or utilizing public transportation. Whereas the latter two choices mainly simply return an inventory of instructions, driving provides you a correct map view and navigation alerts. After I used it whereas driving round, the map view was principally clear and the instructions had been correct sufficient to get me to my vacation spot. It’s all powered by Right here location providers, which have been round for ages and appear fairly good in my nook of the US.

Gentle pairs the Instructions instrument with a Listing that’s its one concession to the search-powered world we stay in. You may seek for common phrases (espresso) or specifics (Starbucks) and get an expansion of outcomes. Tapping on them exhibits some primary information just like the deal with, hours, telephone quantity and a primary description, and you may faucet the map icon to ship that place into the Instructions app. All of it works higher than I anticipated for getting round, although each Google and Apple Maps are higher at providing you with real-time updates on public transit. I depend on real-time information for metropolis buses, which makes the straightforward transit choices on the Gentle Cellphone a bit onerous to regulate to.

This ethos unsurprisingly permeates each instrument on the telephone. As I discussed earlier, the Alarm has no snooze button, however you’ll be able to set a number of alarms. You may sync your Google calendar to the telephone. However if in case you have a couple of calendars in your account (work, household, and so on.), you’ll be able to solely see the default one. There’s a primary Notes app, however you’ll be able to’t do issues like connect photographs to entries. I can’t say I’ve an issue with any of this, as a result of that’s the entire level of the Gentle Cellphone — limitations are a part of the equation getting into.

There are two essential options I haven’t gotten to but: the digicam and the telephone. That is the primary Gentle Cellphone with a digicam; there’s a 50-megapixel one on the again (photographs are binned and output at 12 megapixels) and an 8-megapixel one on the entrance for selfies. The company’s blog exhibits off a bunch of samples and talks in regards to the course of they’ve used to tune the digicam’s output. Suffice it to say that these photographs are wildly totally different from the closely processed outcomes you’ll get from most trendy smartphones. In good gentle, the Gentle Cellphone’s photographs look respectable sufficient however clearly lack the high quality element we’re used to as of late. It’s the type of digicam that you need to use in a pinch, however you’ll discover it missing if you happen to’re in any respect severe about images.

For me the problem is much less in regards to the picture high quality, which has its personal lo-fi allure, and extra in regards to the digicam’s responsiveness. Gentle included a devoted digicam button, making it exceedingly easy to rapidly shoot a picture. However, upon getting your scene framed up and press the shutter button, it takes between one and three seconds for the digicam to truly take the photograph. That’s an eternity and it makes the digicam unattainable to make use of for something the place motion is concerned. I’m glad the Gentle Cellphone III has a digicam. However it brings me again to a time when telephone cameras had been helpful however full of compromises. I might stay with the aesthetics of the photographs if the digicam was extra responsive, however the lag simply kills it. If I used the Gentle Cellphone full time, I’d most likely use my correct digicam far more usually — which could be an excellent factor! However I’d undoubtedly miss the comfort of taking high quality photographs in a pinch from my telephone.

Utilizing the Gentle Cellphone as a telephone

Some 15 or 20 years in the past, cell telephones had been principally meant for speaking and texting, keep in mind? The Gentle Cellphone III is a good system for telephone calls, and a mediocre one for texting. In my testing, calls had been clear and straightforward to listen to on each ends, and the built-in speaker is surprisingly usable once you don’t really feel like holding one thing up (please, cease utilizing speaker telephone a lot in public, individuals!). The contacts part of the app is, in fact, minimal: simply names and telephone numbers. As such, this can’t substitute an deal with guide or trendy contact checklist. For most individuals I care about, I have to retailer at the very least a telephone quantity, deal with and e-mail. There’s in fact no want for an e-mail deal with on the Gentle Cellphone, however an deal with discipline could be nice so you’ll be able to rapidly pull up instructions to a buddy’s home.

If the Gentle Cellphone’s music participant was a letdown, attempting to textual content was the deadly flaw that killed my dream of utilizing this system full time. In comparison with the Gentle Cellphone II, this new mannequin is considerably simpler to textual content with. The extra responsive and wider OLED display screen means the keyboard is analogous in measurement to those you’ll discover on an iPhone or Android system. The messaging app additionally does some good issues, like robotically sending hyperlinks and photographs individuals share to your e-mail deal with so you’ll be able to have interaction with them in your laptop.

However there’s no autocorrect. And if you happen to haven’t tried to textual content on a telephone with out autocorrect these days, let me inform you — it sucks.

The web is filled with individuals complaining about weird autocorrect errors, however what goes unnoticed is the way it hangs out within the background truly makes the vast majority of our messages far clearer. If I attempt to textual content at a velocity just like that on my iPhone, my messages are riddled with typos. Even after I decelerate it’s nonetheless very simple to misfire, necessitating irritating edits to sort things. There’s a spell-check function inbuilt, so phrases that I biffed had been at the very least underlined. An extended press on them gave me a couple of choices to appropriate issues, however the time it took me to compose and ship messages was considerably longer than on a contemporary system. The keyboard structure itself is okay and took little time to regulate to, however I by no means felt comfy as a result of I used to be at all times making and fixing errors.

The opposite half of this concern is extra philosophical. Again within the day, we used texts to ship fast updates to individuals; having prolonged conversations was not the norm. That modified even earlier than the arrival of smartphones and I’ve mates whose velocity at texting utilizing T9 was spectacular. However nonetheless, telephones simply weren’t meant for that. At this level, although, whether or not it is in WhatsApp or Telegram or Sign or your telephone’s built-in messaging system, we’ve ongoing conversations that go along with us in all places.

The Gentle Cellphone is a return in direction of utilizing messaging for fast check-ins and updates, maybe as precursors to an precise telephone (or in-person!) dialog. However belief me after I say that maintaining with a bunch dialog will probably be an train in frustration with the Gentle Cellphone. I can stay with the minimalist interface, restricted emoji choice and incapacity to ship something apart from plain textual content and photographs if I might kind quicker — however I can’t. You’ll have to essentially re-think your relationship with how you utilize messaging on a telephone.

Which is type of the purpose of this entire train.

Breaking an dependancy

I can blame the music participant or lack of autocorrect, however in the end I used to be not prepared for the way radically totally different the Gentle Cellphone III expertise is. There have been a number of sensible concerns that saved me from totally shopping for in. I would like two-factor authentication apps for lots of providers I take advantage of. If I needed to go to a live performance, I’d want a smartphone for tickets. I don’t cope with checks usually, however I can’t keep in mind the final time I deposited one at a financial institution as a substitute of on my telephone. I’m occurring trip quickly and wish to have the ability to take good photographs with out dragging my digicam round.

I might determine the required work-arounds for nearly all of this stuff. Possibly the up to date music participant Gentle is engaged on could be sufficient for me when it comes out. I’d most likely get used to the keyboard ultimately, to a point. I might use my “actual” digicam extra, most likely main to higher and extra considerate photographs. I might get a piece telephone via our mother or father firm to make use of for authentication.

The purpose is that whereas there are methods round this stuff, implementing them includes a ton of labor. And sadly, now that eSIM has taken over, it’s not so simple as simply popping a SIM card into my iPhone if I wanted it for a few of these issues after which dropping it again within the Gentle Cellphone for day-to-day life. And since I wasn’t in a position to totally give myself over to the Gentle way of life, I didn’t actually get to expertise its advantages in a serious method.

However, for a couple of weeks, I left my iPhone at house after I left the home as a lot as potential and there was one thing releasing in regards to the full lack of notifications and common siren-call for consideration that I normally cope with. It’s one thing that has caught with me at the same time as I shifted again to my iPhone for each day use. I may not be prepared to totally break my dependancy to my smartphone, however as they are saying, step one is admitting you’ve got an issue.