It is about It’s been a year late, but the Barbie Phone has finally arrived. do not have It’s not a smartphone, but a pink, clamshell feature phone emblazoned with Mattel’s Barbie logo. The phone has a glossy mirror on the front and comes with a host of accessories, including charms and jewel stickers, for a taste of late 1990s and early 2000s nostalgia. It even says, “Hello, Barbie” when you power it on.
This is HMD’s first true collaboration with Mattel, a company that previously made Nokia-branded smartphones, and it’s part of a shift by HMD to make its own smartphones alongside feature phones developed in partnership with big names, including The Boring Phone, a bizarre collaboration with Heineken earlier this year.
The Barbie Phone runs KaiOS, an operating system designed for feature phones, and adds some smartphone features like 4G connectivity, Wi-Fi, GPS, access to apps like WhatsApp, Google Maps, YouTube, etc. It feels like using the Symbian operating system of old Nokia phones, but with modern amenities.
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Photo: HMD
HMD’s new flip phone can make calls and send texts by default, and as the company is actively working to reduce screen time and distractions, the idea is to use it as a second phone so you don’t get notifications while hanging out with Ken at the beach.
HMD isn’t the first company to develop a product based on the concept of breaking free from our always-connected lives: there have been a few similarly-inspired phones over the years, including the Light Phone and the 2018 redesign of the Palm. Other similar ideas include app timers and other screen-time-reducing features built into Android, iOS and even feature phones such as the Nokia 3310, which HMD makes under the Nokia brand.
Think Pink
The Barbie Phone’s lid has a reflective finish on the outside that acts as a mirror (remember the LG Shine?) and has a hidden digital clock embedded in the center. Open the lid to reveal a beautiful 2.8-inch display. You can enter text using the built-in backlit keyboard, and there are little Barbie-themed trinkets throughout, like a palm tree icon around the number 7. There are also, by my count, six Barbie logos – either the full text or just the letter “B.”
It’s powered by Qualcomm’s 215 chipset and has 512MB of RAM, 4GB of storage, and support for microSD cards up to 32GB. Yes, you can use it as an MP3 player and listen to “I’m Just Ken” via Bluetooth or the 3.5mm headphone jack. HMD claims the 1,430mAh battery (also pink) will deliver around 3.8 hours of talk time on 4G (6.3 hours on 3G), but we’re not sure how long that will last with normal use. Charging is via USB-C with a charging cable that’s, you guessed it, pink.
