Chips & Hardware
Light built a flip phone with color, at a $299 price
Light, the startup behind the minimalist Light Phone, is launching the Light Flip, a $299 flip phone with a colorful plastic shell, its cheapest device yet.
Kaiwei Tang, who helped create the Motorola Razr more than 20 years ago, has spent 10 years building Light, the startup behind the minimalist smartphone alternative Light Phone. Tang told TechCrunch he was surprised to find his customers asking for a flip phone: after years of interviewing young people who use flip phones, his team kept hearing the same pattern. “They’re describing the flip phones in negative language, but they stick with it, and they feel proud,” Tang said.
That observation led Tang and co-founder Joe Hollier to put the fast, custom software from Light’s last three touch-screen phones into a flip-phone form factor, resulting in the Light Flip — the most affordable device Light has released. The phone runs the same Light Phone OS and SDK developer program as the company’s touch-screen devices, with tools like an alarm, calculator, and calendar.
Pricing has always been a challenge for the small hardware startup. The unlocked Light Phone III retails for $799, but the Light Flip cuts that to $299 by dropping a touch screen, NFC reader, and selfie camera. It’s also made of plastic rather than aluminum, which lets Light offer it in six colors: black, red, yellow, pink, navy blue, and light gray. Light is also piloting a financing option: through a two-year contract with its own service plan, customers can get the Light Flip for $39 per month, or the Light Phone III for $59 per month over the same term. The company recently piloted phone contracts with Andrew Yang’s carrier Noble Mobile as well.
The Light Flip has a 2.8-inch OLED screen inside and no external display, though a small notification light sits on the front. It supports 5G and 4G LTE connectivity, a 3.5mm headphone jack and Bluetooth, USB-C charging, both eSIM and physical Nano SIM cards, and a 12-megapixel rear camera. The phone is expected to ship in April 2027, a lead time Light acknowledges is long; to keep preorder customers engaged, the company is launching a “Flip Your Life” program with biweekly newsletters to help them prepare for lower-smartphone-use habits.
Why it matters
Light’s bet suggests the flip-phone revival among younger users is now big enough to justify a dedicated low-cost product line, testing whether “less phone” companies can compete on price as well as philosophy.