SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 19, 2026, 03:39 PST
- Tech site Android Police said minimalist phones are becoming viable again, pointing to new models from Mudita and Punkt.
- Punkt’s MC03 splits “trusted” and “wild” apps into separate spaces and sells its privacy software on a subscription.
- Mudita’s Kompakt pairs an E Ink screen with an “Offline+” switch that cuts radios and sensors for a hard disconnect.
Android Police said in a piece published in the past day that minimalist phones are “finally worth buying,” arguing the category is moving beyond bare-bones “dumb phones” as vendors ship tighter software and clearer limits. It singled out Mudita’s Kompakt and Punkt’s MC03 as two very different bets on doing less without going fully offline.
The timing is awkward for mainstream phone makers and convenient for everyone else. Punkt, unveiling the MC03 earlier this month, is pitching its device as a privacy play “as we enter the age of AI,” with founder and CEO Petter Neby saying users are “stressed and overwhelmed” by tracking and monetisation. Punkt said the phone separates a vetted “Vault” space from a looser “Wild Web” area, and that its AphyOS software will require a paid subscription after the first year, starting at 9.99 a month.
The MC03, which Punkt says is built in Germany, is also a quiet admission that privacy alone does not sell phones. The Verge reported the device upgrades the screen and battery from Punkt’s earlier MC02, carries an IP68 rating, and is slated for three operating system upgrades and five years of security updates, putting it into the same conversation as repair-and-privacy pitched rivals such as the Fairphone line.
Mudita’s approach is more literal: take the modern smartphone habit loop and slow it down. The company says the Kompakt uses a 4.3-inch E Ink display — the electronic paper tech used in e-readers — with a custom operating system and an “Offline+” button that cuts microphones and the GSM modem at the hardware level, while disabling the camera, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth through software. Mudita also says users can sideload Android apps, but warns that apps needing Google services may not work properly, and that it plans five years of software and security updates.
On Mudita’s store, the Kompakt is listed at $369, with the pitch aimed at “essential tools” and “no tracking, no ads, and no distracting apps.”
Android Authority, which handled the Kompakt at CES this month, said the phone has a 3.5mm headphone jack, IP54 dust and water resistance, 32GB of storage expandable up to 2TB, and a 3,300 mAh battery that Mudita rates for up to six days. It also highlighted the physical switch that shuts down radios and sensors, calling it central to the device’s “Offline+ Mode.”
The thread running through both launches is software that enforces friction on purpose. Punkt is trying to bottle privacy into a consumer product by walling off trusted tools from everything else; Mudita is trying to make the smartphone less stimulating by design, not by a settings menu most people will never open.
That shift matters because earlier minimalist devices often asked customers to accept trade-offs that felt like punishment: slow interfaces, patchy networks, or missing essentials like navigation. Now the sellers talk less about nostalgia and more about control — and they are charging for it, in hardware price and, in Punkt’s case, a monthly fee.
There is a catch. Subscriptions can be a tough sell in a market trained to expect security updates for free, and “privacy-first” claims are hard for ordinary users to verify. On the e-paper side, E Ink screens are still not built for video, fast scrolling, or heavy apps, and sideloading can turn a “simple phone” into a weekend project.
For now, the bet is that a slice of buyers will pay for constraints. If Punkt starts shipping at the end of January as it has said, and Mudita can keep its software stable while resisting the creep of “just one more app,” 2026 could be a real test of whether minimalist phones are a product category or just a mood.
