Light Phone III review: everything in moderation

What are the essential features of a smartphone? That’s not a rhetorical question, and it’s actually a useful exercise: if I were to take away everything but the things you truly need on your phone, what would those things be? And how might you interact with your phone differently if those things were all you had?

The $599 Light Phone III is one attempt to answer those questions. The Light Phone III is substantially more powerful, functional, and smartphone-ish than anything Light has shipped before. (It’s also substantially more expensive.) It has a camera now, and a fast and colorful touchscreen. It connects to 5G networks on all three major US carriers and lots of others around the world.

It’s a smarter phone than the previous Light Phones, but it’s still not a smartphone. It has no app store, no social media, no web browser, none of the things we do on our phones all day. That is, of course, the whole point: Light envisions the device as either a no-frills, nights-and-weekends complement to your smartphone or a wholesale replacement for anyone looking for much less screen time. More recently, it has caught on as a device for kids — a school in Massachusetts made …

Read the full story at The Verge.