BoringPhone: the boring mobile phone to fight the addiction

A smartphone to fight the smartphone’s addiction. This is the concept that is hidden behind the Boringphone, for sale on Kickstarter at 200 euros.

We can’t flip through the main social networks and not even surfing on WhatsApp with the Boringphone, all applications that create addiction. But we can do many things more than with the old generation telephones.

The idea of the BoringPhone

To realize the Boringphone was the new zealand Alex Davidson, that, with the slogan “Get your life back”, organized a fund raising to create and release the new smartphone.

The telephone is a middle way between the too much and the too less, the right compromise between the old and the new. The one that today might seem a “boring phone” once was an advanced telephone. So the BoringPhone is in the middle way between a modern smartphone and an old Nokia 3310.

The modern smartphone is the too much, which continuosly rings and that keeps us stuck on the screen by taking our life. The old telephone is the too less, which allows us at least to call. The BoringPhone is what is in the middle and it might be the right “dose” of smartphone that allows us to not fall into addiction.

The minimalist smartphone

Between the slogans of Boringphone, next to “Get your life back” there is obviusly “the minimalist smartphone”, which reflects the name of the boring phone by getting it sweeter.

Why don’t we buy straight an old phone? The “boring phone” give something more compared with the old generation telephones. We can send and receive calls and send and receive messages, but even using the GPS, make pictures, listen the music and the podcast. It is possible even to use the telephone as hotspot. But there isn’t the app store and so we won’t find those vast amount of applications that create addiction.

What the Boringphone can’t do

There isn’t Facebook, or WhatsApp, Instagram or Twitter. No social networks so, which are right the main cause of addiction. Therefore we can’t read the emails and, even though there is an internet connection, there isn’t any browser.

With the browser, infact, we will have access to everything without the need to download the applications. And, obviusly, there isn’t the app store, so if we will suddenly fell the uncontrollable impulse to download the social networks to flip a little bit through the homepage and find out the useful or unuseful informations, the only thing to do is to repress this impulse.

The biggest limit of the Boringphone, infact, are right the social networks, all the other functions are mostly available. We can use it as gps and we can shot pictures or record videos. But the social networks are the real monster of the addiction from which stay away.

Technical specifications

Obviusly from the technical point of view the Boringphone isn’t the latest next gen technology. Moreover it doesn’t need the performances of the modern smartphones for the little that it does.

The display is of 5,5 inches with a resolution 1080×1920 and a glass Gorilla Glass 3. The processor is a Snapdragon 625, with 4GB of Ram and 32 GB of internal memory. The back camera 12MP, 2.2, which allows to record 4K videos. There isn’t an internal camera but, moreover, the selfie’s trend started in the social networks’ era, so on the Boringphone we don’t need it.

The battery is of 3.080 mAh. There is the jack for the headphones and an USB Type C for the charge. At the moment it costs about 210 euros, but the really first supporters had the possibility to buy it at 199 new zealand dollars, which are 120 euros.

There are already many people that support the idea and that believe in the BoringPhone’s success, will they be able to keep on this patch or will they be newly taken back by the social’s world?

This post is also available in: Italiano