My stupidest phone ever made me happier than any smartphone I have owned. Here is why I switched, what I gave up, and what I got back.

I have a new dumbphone. Honestly, it is the stupidest phone I have ever had, even more stupid than the Punkt MP02, and somehow that is exactly what is giving me lots of joy. So I have to share it with you, because joy has to be shared. It is a small red Panasonic KX-TU550EXR flip phone from Amazon, the same red as my car. It opens and closes with that satisfying little snap, and you can set it up so that opening the phone takes the call and closing it hangs up.

Which, if you ask me, is how every phone should work.

The last time a piece of hardware made me feel this way was the very first day I used a Punkt. Before that, I have to go back many years. Holding this little flip phone reminds me of what it feels like to use a good mechanical camera with a manual focusing lens. There is intention, there is a small ritual every time you pick it up. You just open it, do the one thing you wanted to do, close it, and walk away.

I called it the stupidest phone for a reason. It has no Wi-Fi at all, so it cannot make a hotspot for my laptop. If I am on the move, I simply have no internet on my laptop. Yes, that is a bit crazy in 2026. But it is also kind of liberating. The phone runs only on 4G, so my mind does not get bathed in all those narrow band 5G emissions. Other than that, it is a very capable little device. I even managed to put podcasts on it as MP3 files.

Two small changes, one big shift in joy

Two things have changed in my life recently, and both of them bring me joy on a daily basis. The first is this superb red flipping phone. The second is that I switched back to Sony for my photography, because I needed full frame, and I paired it with a Voigtländer manual lens. These two objects, sitting next to each other on my desk, are quietly rearranging how my days feel.

The camera with a manual focusing lens is, for me, what a small Leica is for richer photographers. My poor man's Leica, if you like. The lens is smaller, so it is easier to carry around all day. But the real reason I love it is that it forces me to focus, in every sense of the word. You cannot just lift the camera to your face and spray and pray. You have to be totally in the moment. You have to decide what matters in the frame. You have to choose.

And that choosing, that small physical act of turning a ring with your fingers until the world becomes sharp, makes the photo feel like yours. The same thing happens with the flip phone. Opening it, closing it, pressing real buttons with my thumb. My body is involved. My attention is involved. I am not just swiping through a glass rectangle while my mind drifts somewhere else.

A flip phone that remembers the 90s

There is also something deeply nostalgic about a clamshell phone. It brings me right back to the days of the Motorola RAZR, when phones felt like little objects you were proud to own, not slabs of glass that all look the same. I even have custom ringtones for SMS messages and for calls, composed by my younger daughter Ida on her drum set and on the piano. Those ringtones do not exist anywhere else on Earth. They are ours.

That, to me, is the heart of the whole thing. A phone should be a tool, not a slot machine. A camera should be a tool, not an algorithm. The objects we carry around all day should reflect the people we want to be, and the people we love. When I hear Ida's little drum pattern coming out of a red plastic flip phone, I smile every single time. You cannot buy that kind of joy in an app store.

So if you have been quietly wondering whether your shiny rectangle is really serving you, try the opposite. Try the smallest, simplest, stupidest phone you can find. Put real buttons under your thumb. Put a manual lens on a camera. Put a notebook and a pen in your pocket. You might be surprised how alive your days start to feel.

Do Your Own Research

On dumbphones, screen time, and mental health

• Pieh, C. et al. (2025). Smartphone screen time reduction improves mental health: a randomized controlled trial.BMC Medicine, 23:107. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11846175/
• Dale, R. et al. (2025). The influence of smartphone reduction on heart rate variability: a secondary analysis from a randomised controlled trial. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12360053/
• Sharma, K. K., Somasundaram, J., Sachdeva, A. (2024). Self-Selected Versus Assigned Target to Reduce Smartphone Use and Improve Mental Health: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial. JMIR. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11106705/

On focus, flow, and attention in a distracted world

• Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper & Row. Overview at the American Psychological Association: https://www.apa.org/
• Firth, J. et al. (2017). The efficacy of smartphone-based mental health interventions for depressive symptoms: a meta-analysis. World Psychiatry. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5608852/
• Linardon, J. et al. (2019). The efficacy of app-supported smartphone interventions for mental health problems: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. World Psychiatry. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6732686/

On nostalgia and meaningful objects

• Sedikides, C., Wildschut, T. (2018). Finding meaning in nostalgia. Review of General Psychology. Available via the American Psychological Association: https://psycnet.apa.org/
• Routledge, C. et al. (2011). The past makes the present meaningful: Nostalgia as an existential resource. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(3), 638-652. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21787094/