Light, the Brooklyn-based startup known for stripped-down "dumb phones," has unveiled its newest device: a flip phone designed by one of the original engineers behind the Motorola Razr, aimed at users who want to spend less time staring at a screen rather than more.

The device, called the Light Flip, is not made or sold by Motorola. But its resemblance to the company's iconic early-2000s flip phone is intentional. Kaiwei Tang, one of the phone's designers, was a member of the original Razr design team two decades ago, and the new device leans heavily on that legacy — a compact clamshell shape, a hinge built to snap shut with a satisfying click, and a deliberate absence of the sprawling app grids that define modern smartphones.

The Light Flip will sell for $299 when it ships in April 2027, a sharp discount from the $700 starting price of the company's most recent device, the Light Phone III, which launched last year. Preorders are open now.

A phone built to be put down

Light has spent the past decade building a reputation among people trying to cut back on smartphone use, starting with a Kickstarter-funded device in 2015. Its devices strip away social media, web browsers, and most other attention-grabbing features, offering only basic tools like calling, texting, music and navigation.

The Flip pushes that philosophy into a new form factor. The phone has no touch screen. Instead, it uses a 12-button keypad reminiscent of the T9 texting era, along with three function buttons........

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