Sometimes calling a phone “dumb” can be a compliment, especially if that's the kind
of phone you are looking for. This little guy I have on my desk today is called the
Light Phone 2. And like usual, we're going to find out if the Light phone is a lightweight.
Supposedly this is one of those simple minimalist phones that only do a few things so you can
reduce the amount of time spent staring at a screen, which of course, is a healthy desire.
But the unhealthy part of all of this is that the Light phone still costs $300. And I don't
know about you, but if I'm spending $300 on something, it better do some things...like
more than one.
The phone itself is very small, thin, and well, light. Let's get started.
[Intro]
You might have noticed by now that the Light phone's screen is a bit different. Instead
of an AMOLED or LCD, this guy is an E Ink display, like an ereader or a Kindle. Meaning
it has two colors: black and white. And a refresh rate of whenever I feel like it, which
is usually after a button press or something. Right off the bat I can tell the vibrator
is pretty loosy-goosy. See if you can hear it. It's like a couple of rocks in a tin can.
It does have a full blown corded keyboard for sending text messages, but no email or
spell check. It's got an alarm capability, and even a few ringtones to choose from.
[Ringtone playing]
And that's about it. No cameras, no internet, and probably no way of surviving what's coming.
But let's keep going.
The Light Phone 2 has that electric paper, E Ink screen, that's just shy of 3 inches.
At first glance and first touch I thought the screen might be made of plastic, which
usually scratches at a level 2 or 3. But it turns out that it's using a frosted roughed
up glass layer that's acting like sandpaper to my Mohs hardness tools. You can see the
markings at levels 3, 4, and 5. These aren't scratches though – just permanent dust streaks
from my picks. This means that the screen is still pretty resilient from actual physical
damage, but if left alone with your keys or coins it's going to get superficially scuffed
up in a way that's difficult to clean.
There is no front facing camera on the Light Phone 2, nor can it receive picture messages.
It's got the front proximity sensors and an earpiece grill below the glass and screen
layer that won't be falling out on it's own. The sides of the phone are made from plastic,
along with the volume buttons that are placed on either side of the menu button. You can
see the screen flash white every now and then. This is how the E Ink screen refreshes itself,
but I'll explain more about that in a second.
The top of the phone has a headphone jack and power button. And there's a whopping total
of 1 gigabyte of on-board storage for music. We do have an unlocked SIM card tray, but
no additional expandable memory. One gig is all you get.
Then down here at the bottom we have the blast from the past micro USB port, which most smartphones
started phasing out about 3 years ago. Then the back of the phone still has no camera
and appears to be made from plastic. The Light logo on the back is a built-in part of the
panel and won't be falling out on it's own.
Fun fact, there's actually been a light bulb burning in Livermore California almost nonstop
for the past 117 years. It's called the Centennial Light. Most of the wear and tear on light
bulbs comes from turning them off and on and not just by leaving them lit. LED bulbs of
course last about 50 times longer than a normal incandescent. But still, 117 years is very
impressive. Congrats to Livermore California.
Speaking of lights, let's talk about the screen. We've never burned an E Ink display before.
Each pixel only has two colors, black and white, and can flash back and forth between
the two. But the screen doesn't use power to maintain what state that pixel is left
in, like a normal AMOLED or LCD would. It's kind of like an Etch-a-Sketch, once it is
that color it stays that color until it's refreshed. You can see as I flip through the
screens, there's also a bright flash of all the pixels switching to their new orientation.
And sometimes there's a bit of ghosting from what was left on the screen before it. But
interestingly enough, even after 50 seconds of burning, the E Ink display appears to have
no damage. The faint ghosting you see over the entire screen is just one of those quirks
of E Ink and doesn't have anything to do with the fire. Everything, surprisingly, still
works. Thumbs up for that.
Now, realistically with a phone this small, it will most likely always be in a front pocket.
But for kicks and giggles, if you were ever to put it in your back pocket things might
get a bit dangerous...for both the phone and your bum. As we can see, the phone screen
is indeed made of glass with cracks running along the entire surface. And now only the
bottom strip of the screen below that crack is still working. The Light Phone 2 does not
survive the bend test. It is interesting that the portion above the crack is still frozen
in it's last state before breaking. The E Ink never had a chance to refresh or clear
itself, so it's just permanently in that position now. And since we're already this far, we
might as well just see what else is inside this little guy.
Now, initially I thought the whole back housing might just pop off like we've seen on some
other cheaper Android phones. And even though I was successful in my use of brute force,
this turned out to be the wrong way to open it up, and I'll show you why in just a second.
With the plastic back housing forcibly removed, we can see that the screen is glued to a battery
and mid frame sandwich, and the correct way to take apart the phone would have been to
remove the screen first, with heat and gentle prying and then unscrew some screws. It's
interesting that even now, with the E Ink screen completely detached from the phone,
it's still displaying its final frame, even though both screen ribbons are ripped completely
off.
I'll remove the two Phillips head screws and unclip the ribbons just like a little Lego.
One is for the display, the other is probably for the digitizer. The back of the mid frame
sandwich has the battery. This is gently adhered to the back of the motherboard, and is 950
milliamp hours, which is about 3x the capacity of the Apple watch. I'll pop off the two black
plastic end caps, and then if we look closely we can see that there is a Phillips head screw
in each of the four corners. And still attached to these screws is a gold threaded insert.
Normally these inserts are embedded into the plastic frame and give something solid for
the screw to grip onto when they're assembling the phone. But since I man-handled it out
of the housing with force instead of finesse, it just wants to spin freely on the screw.
Let's pretend I did all that ripping apart on purpose to show you what the screw inserts
look like...you know, for educational purposes.
Once all the inserts are pulled off the screws, I can separate the mid frame from the motherboard.
And it does have some copper sheeting on it which is nice. I'm glad to see that the $300
are being put to good use. Gotta keep the phone cool while the...alarm clock goes off,
and the screen refreshes twice a minute. This phone's working as hard as the White House
during a pandemic. Good thing help is finally on the way. The motherboard has the headphone
jack, front facing proximity sensors, earpiece speaker on the back, and the microphone and
micro USB port down on the bottom. And of course, our loosy-goosy coin style vibration
motor in the plastic bit. I mean, I think the Light Phone is kind of a fun idea, it
can also be it's own WiFi hotspot, and it's definitely a step above the NoPhone. And I
also think that people really are addicted to their smartphones these days. And we know
that smartphones don't bring happiness. So I guess if money isn't an issue and you have
$300 to burn, you can always snag a Light Phone, even if it will probably end up decorating
your shelf 20 minutes after you fail your tech detox. If you're really serious about
wanting to cut back on doomsday scrolling though, they still do sell flip phones for
super cheap and maybe one of those is a better option.
Either way though, let me know what you think down in the comments. Come hang out with me
on Instagram and Twitter...unless, of course, you have a Light Phone. And thanks a ton for
watching. I'll see you around.