Light Phone III Review: A Beautiful Dumbphone Fit for Travel & Adventure

Light Phone Origins

First introduced in 2025, the Light Phone III is a minimal, function-first device designed to be used as little as possible. To understand it fully—and it's predecessors—it's useful to know its origin story, and the greater context within which it exists. As a primer, consider that the average American spends around five hours per day on their phone. Teens log over six.

Back in 2014, Brooklyn-based artist Joe Hollier, co-founder of Light Phone, was part of a Google-backed incubator focused on app development. The program's goal was to create platforms that could easily grab attention, collect data, and get users to bite on targeted advertising. From the inside, Holier saw how devices were engineered to affect human psychology, and from this experience, he and his co-founder Kaiwei Tang were determined to offer a remedy.

Announced in 2015—same year Apple released the iPhone 6s—the first Light Phone purposely stood in stark contrast to smartphone adoption, which skyrocketed from 20% to nearly 70% in the US throughout the 2010s. Light Phone I could make and receive phone calls, and that was it. In 2019 Light Phone II added text messaging, an e-ink screen, and "tools" to stand in for apps; a music player, an alarm, and directions, among them (the model is still available). Ten years later, Light Phone III has come a long way with the addition of a camera, USB-C charging, an OLED screen, and a hardware-ready design for the future addition of fingerprint ID and an NFC chip. However, true to the founders’ original vision of a distraction-free device, it will never have a web browser, social media, a newsfeed, or email.

First Test: Trail Running in the Catalina Mountains

For most hikers, campers, trail runners, mountain bikers, or backcountry skiers, transitioning to a phone without maps is a hard sell. Counting them up, I have seven map-based apps on my iPhone that I rely on for both day hikes and longer routings. (Gaia, Ride with GPS, Komoot, Google Earth, the COROS app, FarOut, and onX, if you're curious.) From the beginning of my Light Phone test, I knew this aspect of going light would take the most adjustment.

A couple weeks after receiving a Light Phone III to review, I drove up into the mountains north of Tucson for a trail run on a largely new-to-me section of the Arizona Trail Wilderness Bypass. I had a route downloaded to my watch, but these trails are often overgrown, burned out, and hard to follow. Navigating from a 1.5-inch watch screen is tedious at best and very often frustrating, but alas, out I went.

Three miles in, I came around a bend through a drainage and stopped in my tracks at the most fragrant smell of something yellow blooming in a cleft of the rock. Here, the first benefit of the Light Phone showed itself: Instead of taking out my phone to use Google Lens for identification, and instead of snapping a photo to upload to social media later, I simply stopped and smelled the flowers. Literally. From there, I noticed the entire face of the mountain was covered in these blooms, and just above, a small clump of aspens stood quaking yellow in the breeze, the first hints of fall.

Shot on Light Phone III

We’re so used to getting the picture or IDing the thing and moving on that we often leave the moment before it’s fully appreciated. Many of us self-identifying outdoorsy types look down our noses at the folks who come off the buses at the Grand Canyon, smartphones at the ready, snapping photos before they’ve even given themselves time to realize and appreciate where they are in the world, but we tend to overlook how well our phones have trained us to behave in similar ways.

A couple of hours into my hike, my watch started beeping to let me know I was off course, but after turning around several times, I still couldn’t find the trail. Previously, I would have immediately grabbed my phone to figure out what was going on. Instead, I looked up. I had a rough idea of where I needed to be heading, so I made some assessments of the terrain around me, and after about five minutes of back and forth, found my turn.

There’s an old adage that says the best way to not get lost is to stay found. As much as I love digital maps and have heavily relied on them in the past, with map-based apps, staying found is often a simple matter of a Face ID and glance at an app. With paper maps, or figuring out your local trails by feel, staying found is still a skill that requires moments of observation and deliberation. By and large, apps on a smartphone impede the development of those skills. (SAR pros don't call AllTrails "AllFails" for nothing, after all.)

Thru-hiking in the Age of the Smartphone, the Good & the Bad

Lest I sound like the grandpa in the room, I won’t demonize smartphones wholesale, but I do think they have fundamentally changed the way many of us experience the outdoors. In 2014 I thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail with three friends, and looking back through photos, not a single one of them shows anyone on their phones. What did we occupy ourselves with instead?

In those photos, we’re lying in the shade of a water pipe in the Mojave Desert, just waiting for the heat to pass, likely discussing fantasy meals. We’re looking at paper maps in the Sierras, comparing them to what we see in front of us, conferring with one another. “Groundtruthing,” it’s called. We’re lounging with other hikers and stacking Fruit Loops on our legs to pass the time.

That’s not the case anymore. Nowadays hikers are leaving reviews up and down the trail on popular apps like FarOut. There, you’ll find notes on which ridgeline has the best cell service, and at night, it's not uncommon to see the faint glow of a screen streaming Netflix even way out in the backcountry. Instead of the craft and magic of finding a good cowboy camp at the end of a long day, hikers arrive at patches of dirt in the wilderness only to find them overrun with other hikers, all led there by reviews left on an app.

These apps have certainly had a positive impact on the thru-hiking experience to some degree. Hiking north on the Pacific Crest Trail, the initial 700 miles is an arid desert, for example, and water reports and crowdsourced notes on what’s flowing is a helpful addition to hiker safety. But do we need all the data when we’ve deliberately left that world behind, even if just for a few months, weeks, or days? Do we need to be told where the best views are, where the flattest patches of dirt can be found, or where you can wrangle a spot of 5G service? How you answer these questions might reveal how likely you are to try the Light Phone in the first place.

Bikepacking Baja's Cape Loop with Light Phone III

Up to this point, I’d only used the Light Phone in outdoor scenarios close to home in a place I know relatively well. The risks and challenges were relatively low. In late November, I left my smartphone behind and headed down to Mexico's Baja California to ride a 250-mile loop at the southern tip of the peninsula, Light Phone stashed in the pocket of my cargo bibs, to see how I’d fare further afield.

The first thing I learned is that preparing for an international trip as a Light Phone user takes more time. I downloaded my route to my bike computer, like always, but I also picked up a paper map of the area and made detailed notes on resupply points, the services I could expect, and mileages in between. And of course, packed a Garmin InReach Mini. This is standard fare for any trip really, but the research I did ahead of time was all I’d have in the moment. Even with an international phone plan, I’d have no way to consult additional maps, search for stores, or calculate distances to the closest bailout point if needed. Essentially, there’d be no planning on the fly once I arrived.

Overall, this worked out just fine and alleviated some of the what-if scenarios I may have otherwise entertained with a smartphone. On a trip, the ability to look into all other options can be distracting. Instead, I simply arrived and stuck to my plan. While it took more work on the front end, it was liberating once I arrived.

By far and away the most striking benefit of using the Light Phone while in Mexico was how much I relied on and connected with other people for the smallest of tasks that are otherwise efficiently solved with a smartphone. A glance down rather than a look around for someone to talk to.

Where’s the main road out of town? Can you recommend a place to get breakfast? Where would I find a hotel? What’s the difference between an alambre and a tlayuda? Is there a casa de cambio close by? There were many, many more. Knowing the language helps, but even pantomiming creates a connection that you simply don’t get when your first interaction with a new place is through your phone, scanning reviews of where to go for the best whatever.

That said, I did find myself a bit stranded while cycling in Mexico on a few minor occasions. I checked in for my flight through my wife via Garmin InReach messages, and the Digital Multiple Migratory Form (required for lawful exit from Mexico) only had options for a QR code or URL. For those old enough to remember them, I thought an internet cafe could be my solution to the latter, but those seem to largely be a thing of the past. I arrived at the airport ready to plead my smartphone-less case, but the form was never requested.

In the end, I did use the Light Phone for photos, quick peso conversions, and for tallying the mileage to my next resupply using the handwritten notes I made ahead of time. But by and large, though, it stayed tucked away in my pocket. As a result, my short time in Baja felt more grounded and present than other trips I've taken recently, largely because my mind was fully engaged in the moment and I was interacting more closely with the places I traveled through.

Verdict: A Radically Different Life, That I recommend

Light Phone is billed as “a radically different phone" and "a tool for a better life.” That's spot on, I’d say. Life really does feel radically different with it instead of a typical smartphone.

The Light Phone III's stark contrast to the smartphone-dominated world, and the fact that it lacks so many of the apps and functions that we’re accustomed to using, is both the selling point and its potential downfall. Going light isn't easy (and it ain't cheap at $699). It’s inconvenient and uncomfortable to start. But after three months with the phone, I’m a convert.

Moving forward, the Light Phone III will continue to be my primary phone, but I can envision certain trips where I’ll prefer the ability to access offline maps.

From an outdoors perspective, the Light Phone isn’t very “useful,” but I strongly believe that it provides an opportunity for us to slow down and interact with the world in the way we used to, and in the way that a lot of people go into the outdoors seeking. The Light Phone is a hard sell but the skills it helps hone in making the adjustment are not—patience, thoughtfulness, creativity, and a willingness to embrace uncertainty.

To that end, the Light Phone’s simplicity is exactly the thing most of us need.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will the Light Phone work with my current cell carrier/network?

The Light Phone is unlocked and is not limited to any specific carrier. In the United States, Light Phone III works with the three major cellular carriers Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T. If you use a different network, you can use Light Phone's compatibility checker here to verify your SIM and carrier.

How long does the Light Phone III's battery last?

Early estimates state 1-2 days of battery life with “light” usage. That feels accurate from my personal experience. I was able to work for several hours on a train using the phone’s hotspot, with plenty of battery left over until the next morning.

How does the Directions/GPS tool work?

The Directions tool gives directions for walking, driving, and public transit options. Turn-by-turn voice navigation and two different viewing modes—“road view” and “route view”—will feel similar to other app-based maps. It doesn't show current traffic conditions the way Google Maps and Apple Maps do, and if you'd like to search for locations to check out you have to do that in the Directory Tool. Once you find a destination there, you can route to it in Directions.

How does the music player work?

The Light Phone III's Music tool works similarly to early iPods that didn't connect to wifi or cellular. You’ll manage the Music and Podcast tools from Light Phone’s online dashboard, where you can download audio files and then upload them to your phone for listening.

Can the Light Phone be my only phone, or should I use it as a secondary device?

You can use the Light Phone on its own as your primary device. This is personal preference based on your goals with the Light Phone. I’ve used it as my primary device and continue to utilize my old smartphone at home for app-based needs. Light Phone has more information about using two devices in tandem here.

Does the Light Phone support 3rd party apps?

It does not.

What are the main differences between the Light Phone III and the Light Phone II?

The addition of a camera, USB-C charging, and an OLED screen are the biggest changes that come with Light Phone III. Others include a robust metal frame design, flashlight, and hardware for future improvements such as fingerprint ID and an NFC chip.