Heineken Dials Down On Frills With Nokia Maker To Launch ‘The Boring Phone’
Images courtesy of Heineken
Is your phone always a third wheel during your nights out with friends? You’re certainly not alone. Heineken is so irked by this tendency that it’s teamed up with HMD—the maker of Nokia phones—and streetwear tastemaker Bodega, and made a detour from crafting beers to designing ‘The Boring Phone’, ringing in a new era of connection.
This limited-edition “dumbphone” ditches the endless apps and social media feeds to focus on the real essentials: calls, texts, and reclaiming your evenings.
Image courtesy of Heineken
Inspired by the rise of ‘Newtro’ fashion (think early 2000s nostalgia), The Boring Phone boasts a frosty, transparent case and holographic stickers, complete with Heineken green buttons. But the coolest feature might be its lack of features. No Instagram, no email, just enough tech to stay connected without getting sucked into the digital vortex. Despite this phone being launched by a beer brand, notably, it lacks primitive apps like iBeer too.
Image courtesy of Heineken
Image courtesy of Heineken
This quirky collaboration stems from a shared concern: our phones are hijacking our social lives. Research by Heineken reveals a whopping 90% of young adults admit to “doomscrolling” while socializing, checking their phones an average of seven times per night out.
Looking straight out of the 90s, The Boring Phone is a flip model with a minimalist design consisting of a tiny 2.8-inch QVGA screen on the inside and an even smaller one on the outside. Forgoing fancy cameras, the device boasts a whole 0.3 megapixels.
Image courtesy of Heineken
But what it lacks in tech firepower, it makes up for in practicality. This HMD-made device can be dropped without shattering like modern-day smartphones (think classic Nokia bricks), hold a charge for a week on standby and offers 20 hours of talk time. It’s also 4G capable, with connections to older 2G and 3G networks for wider compatibility.
Image courtesy of Heineken
The Boring Phone isn’t about going completely off the grid, but about finding a balance. As Heineken’s global head Nabil Nasser says, “We could all do with a break from the constant distractions of smart tech,” adding that the company has “gone back to basics… to help people truly connect over a beer, without any distraction from the constant buzzing and dings.”
Bodega co-founder Oliver Mak echoes this sentiment, highlighting the impact of technology on real-life bonds. “Smartphones can be too interesting,” he says, “so we wanted to design a boring one… This is going to help answer the call for better nights out.”
Image courtesy of Heineken
The phone will be unveiled at Milan Design Week on April 18, and then gifted to lucky revelers around the world. For those who miss out on the physical device, fear not. A Boring Phone app launching in June promises to deliver the same tech-free experience on your existing smartphone, ensuring you can experience the JOMO (Joy of Missing Out).
[via Heineken, images courtesy]
