Deliberately Defiant

Light Phone 3 — Is the camera good enough?

Can a minimalist phone replace your smartphone?

I’ve been a fan of minimalist phones for a while now. They help me focus and get more done, and also help a bit with social media addiction.

When my social media exploded (to a total of nearly 500K followers across all platforms) I honestly admit I kinda lost it. It felt NECESSARY to be constantly online. To grow. It was a dead end that led to a lot of anxiety.

Used the second LightPhone for almost a year (until it broke), then the Mudita Pure for a couple months.

I also used an old Nokia 3310, but my national carrier discontinued the 2G bandwidth.

One thing all those phones were lacking was a camera. Going “light”, or minimal is all good, but not being able to take a photo of something in 2025 wasn’t helping. Photos have become such a big part of how we live, it really was the last big missing feature (and Signal integration).