A few months ago, HMD already surprised us with a collaboration with Mattel that revealed the Barbie Flip Phone. Now it has toyed with such concepts again and announced a new surprise alliance with Heineken. So-called Boring Phone.

The tagline of this project is “there’s more social life when you’re less on your phone” and of course the concept aims to take us back to another time when phones reigned supreme.

The Boring Phone has a clamshell design like the early 2000s, with a small 1.77-inch LCD display on its outer casing and a slightly larger 2.8-inch (QVGA) but equally limited internal display in terms of resolution. We have a 0.3 Mpixel camera and a headphone jack, and it supports 2G, 3G and 4G networks.

Concept It is also strange due to its translucent design and we’re focused entirely on rough plastic that gives the impression that we’re looking at a phone where everything has been recycled. The large inner numeric keypad takes up almost half of this clamshell design, giving it a retro look.

HMD did not provide details or technical information about the product, but on the official website of the project it is clear that we are faced with a mobile phone that has almost no applications and will not allow us to practically do anything we normally do. smartphones, such as connecting to social networks or checking email.

Of course: it will let you send SMS, send and receive photos, and even play Snake. Of course, we can talk on the phone, but we cannot instant message, because the idea of ​​​​this proposal, translated into a marketing strategy, is clear: to warn us about our excessive use of mobile phones and to offer an alternative that will allow us to come into more direct contact with customers. our family and friends.

The project was developed by HMD and Heineken with help from Boston-based fashion brand Bodega. The interesting thing is that this is not just a concept: we are looking at a product that will exist, even if it will be produced in limited numbers. 5,000 units will be produced It will be distributed at various events in the UK and, in theory, in other markets at a later date.

Disconnecting People

There were other projects that brought up the same idea a long time ago. One of the most notable is noPhone, a rubber “block” that had the same shape and weight as our smartphones but did nothing: it only served to make us feel like we still had something smartphone-like. Even if it’s not in our pocket.

HMD itself I used old formats For years: After obtaining the license to use the Nokia brand, it brought back legendary models that it adapted to new times, preserving classic design elements such as the physical keyboard or small screen.

He did this with the Nokia 130, Nokia 150, Nokia 5710 XpressAudio or the “magnificent” Nokia 8110, a modern version of this mobile phone that is more expensive than the iPhone

Even the legendary 3310 had its own reissue, and in this, as in the others, the company played partly on nostalgia, partly on the passion to create a new product. We would return to more modest and simple mobile phones to “unplug from people” we only connect with through messaging apps and social networks and go back to doing it the way we did it before.

The idea is great, and such efforts have actually met with some success. Flip phones became a trend among young Gen Zers in the United States a year ago, but the idea still has limited scope. It is difficult to resist what is ultimately imposed by the vast majority.

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