You’re in quite a pickle. You like your touchscreen, your navigation app, your built-in, take-it-everywhere camera, but your smartphone is driving you crazy. You can’t put it down. Perhaps it’s too alluring, with its unrestricted access to, well, damn hear everything.So a dumbphone, purposefully cut off from the social media apps and internet browsers, may be your salvation. But the Punkt MP02 is all buttons, and while that’s great for people who want that, it’s not you. And the Light Phone III is fantastic, very clever, but you don’t want to wait months for your order to ship. Let me turn your attention toward the Wisephone II. It isn’t for no reason that it got a spot of honor in our guide to the Best Dumbphones. It looks and acts like a smartphone, only, dumber—that is, no social media, no email, no games, none of the time-wasting crap that makes you hate your smartphone (so, it’s actually, in a way, smarter?).the basic connect on the wisephone iithe wispehone ii’s 7.9mm width is very slim for a dumbphone – credit: matt jancerMore so than any other dumbphone, the Wisephone II is like a smartphone tinkered with just enough to remove the unrestricted, open-ended access to apps and internet that make smartphones addictive. It looks, feels, and behaves like a smartphone for good reason. It’s based on the Samsung A16 5G. That makes it crazy fast and familiar to use, but its biggest hangup is one unusual to smartphones and dumbphones both: It requires a $15-per-month subscription to WiseOS to get complete access to all its features. That erases some of the benefit of its fairly reasonable asking price of $399.(opens in a new window)TechlessWisephone II(opens in a new window)Available at WisephoneBuy Now(opens in a new window)smart things and dumb thingsThe Good Dumb PartsFast for a dumbphoneFully featured maps appPowerful cameraLarge, beautiful 6.7″ touchscreenDumb Things That Are Just DumbRequires monthly $15 subscriptionNo emails app, which is a plus or minus depending on your outlookhow i testedThe way in which I test dumbphones is the same way in which I test smartphones: I mess around with them a whole lot. You pick up your phone, dumb or smart, an awful lot and so I like to have it on the desk next to me all day for at least several days, just to pick it up, feel it, turn it over in my hand, run through the calendar and messenger. And then I like to walk around with it, using the navigation app and the camera, things that are best used outside. I’m not only comparing it against other dumbphones, but also smartphones, because for many people their next dumbphone will be their first dumbphone, and it’s quite an adjustment.Smartphone With the Smarts Dialed Downsee? based on a smartphone Made by Samsung, and it says right on the back of the case – credit: matt jancerTechless bases the Wisephone II on the Samsung A16 5G smartphone. It’s just that Techless walled off some of its more unrestricted features, such as email apps, social media apps, news apps, internet browser, and access to the Google Play Store removed. All the things that tend to arrest peoples’ attention and draw them into a whirlpool of squandered time and addiction. Because they’re not features you, the user, can toggle on or off there’s no temptation to circumvent them and slip back into smartphone addiction hell.You get Samsung build quality, 5G and 4G LTE cellular network compatibility, a large and beautiful 6.7″ touchscreen Super AMOLED display with 90Hz refresh rate, 128 GB of internal storage, and 4 GB of RAM. Is it overkill for a phone that can’t, by design, play high-end games and stream 4K video? Yeah, but it feels awfully snappy when navigating through menus.No WhatsApp, but What Apps?the app selection screen – credit: matt jancerTechless takes a practical approach to which apps are allowed on the Wisephone II. It curates them, welcoming some onto the Wisephone II’s restricted app library from time to time. That leaves the Wisephone II with the more useful apps that aren’t addictive time hogs in the way that TikTok and Facebook could be. I was pleased to find, alongside the almost mandatory messages app, a maps app with navigation. Finding one’s way around town is often the first complaint I hear from friends who switch to the dumbphone life.Among dumbphones, the Wisephone II has the most impressive camera suite. Again, this is because it’s based on a Samsung smartphone, and there’s much stiffer competition among smartphones to have the best camera. Or at least a decent one. The Wisephone II has a 50 megapixel (mp) main camera, 5 mp macro lens, 2 mp wide-angle lens, and 13 mp front-facing camera for selfies.The Mandatory Subscriptionwiseos – credit: matt jancerThere’s no way to sugar coat the Wisephone’s $15-per-month subscription fee to WiseOS. And that’s if you use your own cellular carrier. You can choose to use Techless’ carrier if you like in one of three plans, which includes WiseOS but run from $23 to $64 per month. That’s an elbow to the gut, though. And it’s strange for any phone, whether it’s a dumbphone or a smartphone.I can’t think of any off the top of my head that require a similar subscription, apart from the cellular plan, to use a phone. It offsets the Wisephone II’s otherwise reasonable $399 price. In fact, the longer you own it and pay that $15 month after month, the more it begins to erase the price advantage it has over its main competition, the $599 Light Phone III.alternatives to the wisephone ii(opens in a new window)Light PhoneLight Phone III(opens in a new window)Available at Light PhoneBuy Now(opens in a new window)The Light Phone III is an excellent dumbphone along the lines of the Wisephone II. It’s very smart and arguably has an even more premium build, as nice as any Samsung Galaxy or Apple iPhone I’ve ever held, and I gave it high marks in my Light Phone III review. The Light Phone III costs a premium over the Wisephone II at $599 versus $399, but you buy it once and that’s it. There’s no subscription like with the Wisephone’s $15-per-month WiseOS in order to access all its features.Light Phone operates on a backorder, though. When you place your order, it’ll take a few months before it ships out. Right now as I’m writing this in late July, an order placed today has a ship date of November, so it’s best for people with a surplus of patience.(opens in a new window)UnpluqUnpluq Tag(opens in a new window)Available at UnpluqBuy Now(opens in a new window)Here’s one that’ll allow you to keep your existing smartphone and just make it dumb on demand, like taking a very smart person and bonking them on the head with a coconut occasionally. The Unpluq Tag uses proximity to unlock and lock apps on your phone, the ones you choose because you deem them the most tempting and distracting. Then you leave the Tag at home and go about your day.You can’t unlock the apps until you return home and can draw the Tag up near your phone. That way you can have a dumbphone when you want no distractions or temptations to unlock the apps—how could you, if the Tag is left somewhere far away?—and a fully featured smartphone at other times.See a complete list of the Best Dumbphones here.can i use Wisephone on my existing cellular network?The Wisephone II comes unlocked, so you’re not bound to using it with a particular cellular network. Check here on the Wisephone’s own site to see if your carrier is supported. The big ones are represented: T-Mobile, AT&T, Mint Mobile, Cricket, and Metro by T-Mobile, among others. Verizon, Boost Mobile, Google Fi, and U.S. Cellular are noticeably absent.can i add some apps from other app stores?the wisephone ii’s fancy, copper-colored cable is usb-c to usb-a – Credit: matt jancerNow look at you, trying to defeat the point of the Wisephone II dumbphone before you even pull the trigger on buying one. There’s probably some very skilled coder who’s nodding along as they read this, saying that they could get deep within the Wisephone II’s software to open it up for such unsupported purposes, but for the layman, no, the Wisephone II purposefully doesn’t allow unfettered access to the Android’s Google Play Store or iPhone’s App Store.So bury your hopes on downloading Instagram on the sly to the Wisephone II. Or more likely, if you’re sure that a dumbphone is for you, breathe a sigh of relief from temptation. If you want something that locks you away from such attention-hogging apps only some of the time, then take a look at the Unpluq and use it with your current smartphone.the bottom lineThe Wisephone II is as close as it gets to the smartphone experience, minus the addictive parts cut out. No games, no internet browser, no social media apps, and no email. But being based on a bonafide Samsung smartphone, it maintains the form, the big touchscreen, and the speed. Consider it the top choice for someone who doesn’t want to make a big deal out of their switch to a dumbphone, someone who doesn’t need the drama—however exciting and enticing—of the Light Phone III’s more unique build, nor the button mashing retroism of the Punkt MP02. Like a smartphone, but just dumb enough to relate to.(opens in a new window)TechlessWisephone II(opens in a new window)Available at WisephoneBuy Now(opens in a new window)The post Wisephone II Review: The Smartest Dumbphone for Smart People appeared first on VICE.