A Review of the Light Phone II

A candid review of the Light Phone II: it doesn’t reliably make calls, I couldn’t use the GPS, and it’s too small to text on.

image of a light phone ii next to the text "light phone ii review"

A Simpler Phone

The makers of the Light Phone II describe it as “a premium, minimal phone“. This phone is tiny; it easily fits in the palm of my average female-sized hand. It’s an extremely basic, stripped-down phone designed to be used as little as possible.

The Light Phone II will make calls and send SMS texts. In addition to these functions, it has seven other tools: an alarm, a calculator, directions, a simple music player, notes/voice memo, calendar, and a podcast tool. My experience with the phone is that it does few of these functions well. In my search for a dumb phone, I was only interested in three functions: phone calls, texting, and directions. I hardly used at the rest of the features on the Light Phone II.

Review of the Light Phone II Tools

Phone

My Light Phone II did not consistently receive calls. More often than I would like my phone would be ringing with the caller appearing on the screen and I would be unable to answer the call. None of the touchscreen buttons or the side buttons answered the call. I also couldn’t decline the call. I would have to let the call go to voicemail and then ring the caller back to talk with them.

My review of the Light Phone II is that the phone had no issues making calls. I was able to dial phone numbers or choose them from my contacts list. My review of the Light Phone II’s phone capability is very low.

Text Messaging

My review of the Light Phone II’s text messaging is based mostly on the physical size of the phone. The Light Phone II is significantly smaller than modern smartphones. While I appreciate it when it comes to putting the phone in my pocket, it makes texting very difficult. The screen automatically rotates to a vertical orientation when composing a text message. Even with rotating the screen, the Light Phone II’s keyboard is smaller than standard smartphones. To add to the difficulty of use, the screen only displays two lines of text at a time. It is difficult to scroll up and read longer texts before sending them.

Thankfully, the Light Phone II supports voice-to-text. During my trial period, I almost exclusively texted in this way. It usually took me 2-3 tries for the text to accurately reflect my speech. I still found this easier than trying to type on the tiny keyboard.

I encountered one critical error when sending a text message. This error restarted the phone and deleted my entire draft of a text. With how difficult it was to compose that text, this encounter still sticks out in my mind.

An additional note is that the Light Phone II does not support MMS. If an image or link is texted to a Light Phone II, the text is automatically forwarded to the email registered to that phone. Links and photos can be viewed on a computer. I found this to be an easy solution to rendering MMS on an e-ink screen.

My overall review of the Light Phone II’s text messaging is mediocre. In my opinion, the voice-to-text and mostly consistent functionality don’t outweigh the small screen.

Directions

Having a GPS is a deal breaker for me. We moved to a new city at the beginning of 2023 and I rely on my GPS to get me everywhere. The Light Phone II does have a GPS installed. For how functional it is, they may as well just save the memory space and not install one.

To start, it can take anywhere from 5-10 minutes to connect to a satellite and begin giving real-time directions. This is disclosed when starting the phone for the first time. The impact of this is you need to plan to use the GPS. Opening the GPS when sitting in the car ready to drive away isn’t an option. The phone also was not able to pick up my location when the was in motion. Searching for the name of a destination occasionally worked. Often it would try and send me somewhere 100 miles away, rather than to a closer branch within 10 miles.

There are no audio directions with the Light Phone II. All directions are read on the phone, and the print is extremely small. Driving with just myself and my children I was unable to use the GPS because of how unsafe it is to read a phone screen while driving.

My overall review of the Light Phone II’s GPS is that it’s not worth using. Don’t waste data and battery life on this function; just get another GPS.

How it Actually Felt to Unplug

Unplugging from my smartphone was the easiest part of my three-week trial. After my initial detox period, I found that I didn’t miss scrolling through Instagram Reels or stalking high-school friends on Facebook at all.

The first couple of days were the hardest. I wasn’t used to being alone with my thoughts or filling my few moments of downtime with anything other than scrolling. I didn’t prepare myself with other activities to fill my time. Looking back, I should have planned ahead. Picking up a few magazines and getting supplies for an easy craft project ahead of time would have helped me.

After the initial few days were over, I found myself getting more and more into activities that I had previously enjoyed. I began reading novels again. I finished knitting a pair of socks I put aside over a year before. I cleaned the clutter off the top of my dresser. When I had a few minutes to spare I was able to do something meaningful with my time rather than just zone out on my phone.

My Conclusions

To sum up my review of the Light Phone II: it wasn’t for me based solely on my user experience of the individual phone. Ultimately, I needed to be able to text and make phone calls reliably. The GPS issues weren’t so important to me because we have a car Garmin system that works well. These issues with the Light Phone II aside, my time using one convinced me that getting rid of my smartphone was the way to go.

After deciding against a Light Phone II, I trialed the Wisephone and ultimately ended up with an F1 Daisy Phone from Sunbeam Wireless.