Sales of This One Throwback Device Grew 14-Fold in a Year — And Your Boss May Be Using One

Apple's iPhones person been criticized for existing wrong a "walled garden" and commanding a precocious value successful speech for entry. And while the large tech companies are competing pinch the latest smartphones from the likes of Google, Apple, and Samsung, location mightiness beryllium title from an unexpected place: the "dumbphone."

These phones, which usually spell backmost to the basics pinch a constricted scope of features, are now being adopted by CEOs who tin spend to beryllium little accessible, reports the Wall Street Journal.

DumbWireless, a marketplace that sells dumbphones from brands for illustration Nokia and Punkt, saw income of $68,000 successful March unsocial compared to $5,000 successful March 2023 — an complete 14-fold increase.

Benjamin Crudo, the 41-year-old CEO of unit package institution Diff, told the Journal that he uses a Punkt MP02 phone, which offers calling and texting and costs $299. He said he only answers emails aliases Slack messages erstwhile he's connected his desktop, and if immoderate emergencies hap aft hours, labor tin scope him pinch a telephone call.

Crudo said his measurement of communicating causes "a spot of disruption because everybody astir maine is communicating successful a definite way, and I'm choosing to pass differently."

"Lucky for me, I'm the boss," he said.

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In summation to the Punkt phone, different "dumbphones" see the Light Phone 2, a $299 instrumentality pinch a black-and-white E-ink surface that focuses chiefly connected calls and texts, and the $329 Sunbeam F1 Pro flip phone which tin travel pinch navigation, weather, and hotspot, aliases without immoderate media astatine all.

Light Phone 2 (L) and Sunbeam F1 telephone (R). Photo by JASON CONNOLLY/AFP via Getty Images

Dumbphones person managed to seizure interest, moreover if they aren't guaranteed a camera. The Light telephone fundraised $400,000 from thousands of individual backers connected Kickstarter starting successful 2015. Now the institution says it has shipped much than 100,000 phones.

Despite their constricted functionality erstwhile compared to smartphones, dumbphones aren't ever the cheaper alternative. The $799 Light Phone 3, for example, adds 5G, a camera, and a bigger surface to the Light Phone 2 astatine a value constituent comparable to the caller iPhone 16.

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