Minimal phone pioneer Punkt is back with a new privacy-focused model at CES

The Swiss minimal phone pioneer Punkt is back with another model, the MC03. The new handset continues Punkt’s focus on privacy, security and digital minimalism.

If you’ve never seen Punkt’s MP01 and MP02, the company’s gorgeously minimal dumb phone line, they’re something to behold. (The MP01 is quite literally a museum piece, in New York’s Museum of Modern Art.) Meanwhile, this new MC03 is the company’s second stab at a more practical touchscreen smartphone, following 2023’s MC02. What you lose in physical beauty and tactile buttons, you gain in flexibility.

As before, the smartphone runs the privacy- and security-focused AphyOS, based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). The fork on the MC03 appears to borrow a page from the Light Phone line. Its UI includes a Light Phone-adjacent row of text for the most common shortcuts, like mail, contacts and calendar.

The MC03 splits data into two sections. There’s The Vault, a secure enclave for apps Punkt has vetted for privacy and security. The second, Wild Web, gives you the freedom to install any Android app. To protect you while using that section, there’s Ledger, which Punkt describes as “strict, visible safeguards that allow easy privacy controls.” Much like Android’s Permission Manager, Ledger lets you define which data, sensors and background resources each app can access. In exchange for the tediousness of approving and denying permissions, you get more gradual control over your data.

All the apps from another Swiss company, Proton, are available in The Vault. (That includes Proton Mail, Proton Calendar, Proton Drive, Proton VPN, and Proton Pass.) Proton founder and CEO Andy Yen said he hopes the collaboration can “inject a little more choice into the marketplace, giving users more ways to take control of their data and regain their privacy.”

Folks buying the MC03 aren’t doing so to get cutting-edge hardware. The phone has an OLED display with a high (120Hz) frame rate, great for showing off that clean, black UI. The MC03 has a removable 5,200mAh battery and a 64MP camera. The device is rated IP68 for water and dust resistance.

Shipments for the Punkt MC03 begin this month in the European market. The phone costs €699 / CHF699 / £610. As with its previous models, the MC03 requires a subscription. (Punkt frames this as paying to retain your data, rather than paying with your data.) One year of the subscription is included with your purchase. After that, you’ll have to pay €9.99 / CHF9.99 / £8.99 monthly. However, paying ahead for a long-term subscription lets you save up to 60 percent. You can learn more on the company’s website.