The Litephone 2 has been on the market for a couple of years and it is basic E INK phone. The Light Phone 2 is a simple, 4G LTE phone with a beautiful black & white matte E-ink display. It is designed to be used as little as possible, and it encourages you to spend quality time doing the things you love the most, free of distraction. The Light Phone 2 brings a few essential tools, like messaging and an alarm clock, so it’s even easier to ditch your smartphone more often, or for good. It’s a phone that actually respects you. However, there is no camera.
The Litephone 2 features a 2.84-inch E INK Carta display with a resolution of 600×480. It does not have a front-light or color temperature system. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon — MSM8909. It also has WIFI and Bluetooth 4.2. There is no internet browser to take advantage of the WIFI. There is a 3.5mm headphone jack so you can listen to sideloaded music in MP3. One of the downsides is the woeful battery. It only has a 950 mAh, which will give you two hours of talk time and 7 days standby. You can power it via the Micro USB cable, by plugging it into your computer or a wall charger. Dimensions are 95.85 x 55.85 x 8.75mm (3.8″ x 2.2″ x 0.34″) and weighs 78g
The Light Phone II is built around a user-customizable toolbox. You can easily add or remove various tools (directions, calculator, music player, Notes, podcasts, etc.) using the web based Dashboard. The tools are completely optional, of course. The Light Phone II will never have feeds, social media, advertisements, news or email. All of the tools are custom designed for their Light OS. They avoid the word apps but use tools instead.
Light OS is based on Android 8.1 and is dead simple to operate. There’s a lock screen — you can add a passcode if you want — and if you tap the middle button on the right edge, you’ll be greeted to your apps, which at the moment are Phone, Alarm, and Settings. You’ll need to head to the Light Dashboard on a computer to activate your phone during setup though, which disrupts the process a little. It’s here that you can connect your iCloud account to sync contacts. Android owners can download a VCF (Virtual Contact File), or vCard file, from services such as Google Contacts and upload it to the Light Dashboard.
I wish there were chat apps on the phone, such as Whatsapp, Line or Wechat. I suppose this phone is geared towards people who just need a basic phone for texts and calls and nothing else. The founders said this phone is hopefully going to cure smartphone addiction.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
