Barbie Phone by HMD: An All-Pink Glittery Dumb Phone That Flips

It's astir a year late, but the Barbie Phone is finally here. This is not a smartphone, but a clamshell-style diagnostic telephone that's each pinkish and branded with Mattel's Barbie logo. The handset has a shiny reflector connected the beforehand and a big of accessories similar charms and gem stickers to instrumentality it retired truthful you tin afloat bask successful that precocious 1990s and aboriginal 2000s nostalgia. It adjacent blurts out, “Hi Barbie,” erstwhile you powerfulness it on.

This is simply a existent collaboration betwixt Mattel and HMD, the institution that utilized to marque Nokia-branded smartphones. It's portion of HMD's pivot to crafting its own smartphones on with diagnostic phones developed successful concern with notable companies. That includes The Boring Phone from earlier this year, calved retired of a weird tie-in with Heineken.

The Barbie Phone runs KaiOS, an operating strategy designed for diagnostic phones that adds a fewer smartphone capabilities, similar 4G connectivity, Wi-Fi, GPS, and entree to apps including WhatsApp, Google Maps, and YouTube. It'll inactive consciousness similar you're utilizing the Symbian operating strategy from Nokia phones of old, conscionable with modern amenities.

By default, HMD's caller flip telephone tin marque calls and nonstop texts. The institution is connected a spot of a crusade astir reducing surface clip and distractions, truthful the thought is to usage this telephone arsenic a 2nd telephone erstwhile you don't privation to beryllium pinged portion kicking it astatine the formation with the Kens.

HMD is hardly the archetypal to physique a merchandise astir this conception of unplugging from the always-on life. There person been a fewer like-minded phones implicit the years similar The Light Phone oregon the redesigned Palm from 2018. Of a akin caput are the app timers and different screen-time simplification features that person been built into Android, iOS, and adjacent the diagnostic phones HMD made nether the Nokia marque sanction similar the Nokia 3310.

Think Pink

The extracurricular of the Barbie Phone's lid has a reflective decorativeness that serves arsenic a reflector (remember the LG Shine?) with a hidden integer timepiece embedded successful the middle. Flip it unfastened and you get a bully 2.8-inch display. You tin usage the built-in backlit keyboard to text, and determination are a clump of tiny Barbie-themed tidbits present and there, similar the thenar histrion icon astir the fig seven. And by my count, six Barbie logos—whether it's the afloat substance oregon conscionable the missive “B.”

It's powered by Qualcomm's 215 chipset, has 512 megabytes of RAM and 4 gigabytes of retention with enactment for microSD cards up to 32 gigs successful size. Yes, you tin usage it arsenic an MP3 subordinate and groove to “I'm Just Ken” via Bluetooth oregon the 3.5-millimeter headphone jack. HMD claims the 1,430-mAh battery—which is besides pink—offers a speech clip of astir 3.8 hours successful 4G (6.3 hours successful 3G), but it's hard to accidental what that translates to successful regular use. It recharges via USB-C with, you guessed it, a pinkish charging cable.