Best Minimalist Phones In 2025: “Smart” Dumb Phones

There is a new trend among smartphone users to end the doom-scrolling cycle and use a device only for its essential basic features, like calling or messaging, and a few other utilities like an alarm, calendar, navigation, or calculator. This aim to focus on simplicity and functionality while avoiding the distractions posed by modern smartphones, such as social media, games, or email, has led to the birth of a new niche, called the “minimalist phone”.

As the name suggests, minimal phones are a hybrid between a dumbphone and a modern smartphone, providing users a non-intrusive and less distracting digital experience. These Android-powered “not-so-smart” phones have limited functionality, such as an E-Ink read-only display, support for essential apps, a camera for scanning documents or basic pictures, and sometimes opting for a physical keyboard over a touchscreen.

The core idea behind a minimalist phone is for its users to spend less time on screen and more time touching grass. In this blog, we have listed the best minimal phones that you can buy in 2025. So, let’s get started.

1. Minimal Phone

Minimal Phone by the Minimal Company is a smartphone running a full version of Android 14 on an E-Ink display. As the company claims, this device forces users to spend more time reading, pursuing other hobbies, or involving themselves in physical activities.

Minimal Phone has a unique design compared to other devices on this list. It packs a 35-button BlackBerry-inspired QWERTY keyboard, making it easier to type messages and emails, and a 4.3-inch E-Paper display similar to ones found on e-readers like the Amazon Kindle, which are easier on the eye and don’t emit as much light as LCD or LED screens.

It has a power button that doubles as a fingerprint scanner, an E-paper refresh button, a SIM card tray with space for a microSD card, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. As for the camera, there is a 5MP selfie camera on the underside of the keyboard and a single 16MP rear-facing camera with flash.

The phone supports any Android app, but its slow E-paper refresh rate, which is limited to shades of gray, makes the performance seem dull. Any modern budget phone will feel faster compared to the Minimal Phone, not because of its specs, but solely due to limitations of its screen. On the flip side, the E-paper screen allows for fantastic battery life, as reduced refresh rate and graphics mean that the phone can last for days.

Minimal Phone Specs:

2. Light Phone 3

The Light Phone 3 gets rid of all the bells and whistles of a smartphone, meaning it offers no support for apps of any kind. Users have to make way with a collection of pre-installed essential apps such as contacts, alarms, maps, music, notes, podcasts, camera, and calendar. The onboard music player does not support streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music, and can only play offline music transferred from a computer.

This minimalist phone is designed from the ground up to reduce any sort of digital distractions while providing essential functionalities. As for specs, it features a 3.92-inch color AMOLED screen with a matte glass finish and runs on the Light OS, powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 chipset and a 1,800mAh battery that can easily last for up to two days. It also has a 50MP rear camera and an 8MP front camera, but no video support.

Lightphone 3 features GPS, NFC, and a fingerprint sensor, and is also splash and dust resistant with an IP54 rating. It has a dual SIM slot with Nano and E-SIM support, a physical wheel for navigation, and a dial to adjust brightness and flashlight sensitivity.

Light Phone 3 Specs

3. Light Phone 2

Most readers would find it worthless to spend $800 on a barely smart phone when they could get an iPhone 16 or Samsung Galaxy S24 for the same price. However, for those who want a Light Phone, they can still opt for the last-gen Light Phone 2, which is still available on sale. At $299, it is substantially more affordable than its successor and may be more appealing to those on the hunt for a minimal phone that is not heavy on their wallet.

At its core, the Light Phone 2 is pretty similar to its sibling, sporting only the bare minimum essential features like the ability to make calls, send text messages, set alarms, navigate using maps, and listen to downloaded music or podcasts. It has a comparably inferior display, a smaller chassis, and most importantly, no camera.

The Light Phone 2 has a 2.48-inch E-Ink display with a 1.3 aspect ratio and a front light that can be turned on and off. It has a Micro USB port instead of a USB Type-C, and a battery capacity of 950mAh that provides two hours of talk time, 2-3 days of battery life with regular use, and up to seven days of standby time. It also offers Bluetooth support and includes a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Light Phone 2 Specs

4. Punkt MP02

The Punkt MP02 is a minimalist 4G feature phone aimed at users seeking a digital detox and enhanced privacy. It runs on the company’s proprietary Apostrophy OS, which is a BlackBerry-hardened version of Android 8.1 that is extremely security-focused and does not offer any app support. It has a secure messaging app called ‘Pigeon’, which is based on the Signal protocol.

The phone bears an industrial design with a trapezoidal form that is handy and easy to use. Its front side is dominated by a tactile numerical keypad and a dedicated navigation button on the left side. Above the keypad is a 2-inch black and white, transflective LCD screen that doesn’t eat up the battery, which can last approximately 3-4 days with regular use.

While it supports 4G connectivity and WiFi, it has no camera and is purely focused on delivering basic phone functionalities like calls, texts, alarm, and calendar. It does have a USB Type-C port to keep up with modern times despite its form factor, but no headphone jack. The target customer for the Punkt MP02 is someone who wants to drastically reduce their smartphone dependence and focus on minimizing digital disturbances.

Punkt MP02 Specs:

5. Boox Palma 2

In essence, the Boox Palma 2 is not a smartphone, but a pocket-sized e-reader designed to provide users with a distraction-free device, focused on productivity and reducing digital interruptions, especially from media apps.

The smartphone-like device powered by Android 13 has no SIM support, but features WiFi connectivity, allowing users to access the Google Play Store and install any app they wish, such as YouTube, WhatsApp, and Telegram, to view media or text, and make calls.

It has a 6.13-inch E-Ink touch display with warm and cold front light settings, a fingerprint reader for security, and a dedicated button for quick access to the device’s main functions. The Palma 2 also has a 16MP rear camera, which is suitable for scanning documents and QR codes but not for photography.

Boox Palma 2 Specs