We first reviewed the security-focused Punkt MP02 ($349) back in 2019 and thought the features didn’t entirely justify the price, but it has improved in every way since then. The 2021 revision of this stripped-down phone has new software that improves battery life and adds 4G voice calling on T-Mobile’s network as well as AT&T’s. And it supports secure texting, calls, voice messaging, and picture messaging through Pigeon, an implementation of Signal Private Messenger—a feature no other voice phone has. That warrants a full reassessment.
Doing Nothing, Elegantly
Voice phones have several target markets, including parents, seniors, and digital disconnectors. The MP02 is designed specifically for executives and hipsters who feel they’re too addicted to their smartphones and need to be forced to pay attention to the world around them. Thus the $349 price: ridiculous when you consider the minimal feature set, but reasonable if that’s what you’re used to spending on a nice jacket or a weekend at a B&B.
Punkt is a small Swiss company. It makes beautiful and expensive electronics, including an alarm clock, a cordless phone, and a USB charger, that evoke mid-20th-century design esthetics. The MP02 is designed by Jasper Morrison, a British product designer who has worked a lot with minimalist Japanese brand Muji.
That physical design is the best thing about the MP02. A friend of mine jokingly referred to it as “the calculator” due to its round, black buttons, but I think the buttons more evoke Marc Newson’s work or kooky 1980s design phones. In your hand, it nails the feeling of “phone-ness.”
The matte polycarbonate chassis has a rubbery trapezoidal back. It’s protected against splashes, but it isn’t fully waterproof. At 4.6 by 2.0 by 0.57 inches (HWD) and 3.5 ounces, it fits easily in your hand and slips effortlessly into a pocket. The only ports on it are a port for connecting headphones or a charger (it looks like USB-C, but it only works with Punkt’s included accessories) and a nano SIM card slot.
The 2-inch, 320-by-240 transflective screen is readable in sunlight and has a minimalistic, text-only interface. The only time you ever see an image is when someone sends you a picture message. By default, it displays the date and time; that’s it.
Making Calls, Loudly
All of the major carriers have plans to turn off their 2G and 3G networks within the next few years, so it’s critical that a voice phone work on 4G with voice over LTE, a system that will endure for the next decade. When we previously reviewed the MP02, it only supported 4G calling on AT&T. This year’s testing shows it also working on T-Mobile and on US Mobile’s T-Mobile network. It absolutely doesn’t work on Verizon, though—three different Verizon SIMs couldn’t connect at all.
The phone has frequency bands 1/2/4/5/7/12/17, which will be fine for AT&T and many T-Mobile users, but it lacks band 71, which T-Mobile uses for some rural coverage. Network signal strength isn’t far off from the other voice phones I tested, as long as you don’t need band 71. Wi-Fi calling doesn’t work, but you can at least connect to Wi-Fi and then use Pigeon to call other Signal users.
Call quality and volume are very good. The MP02 had the second-loudest earpiece of a batch of voice phones I recently tested, maxing out at 96dB. The speakerphone is on the back, designed to amplify itself slightly by bouncing off your desk. The sound is audible and not distorted, though it’s a bit hollow. The speaker achieved 84dB at six inches, which was quieter than some other phones, but still not bad. The 17 included ringtones are all high-pitched beeps or chips.
There’s no 3.5mm jack, but Bluetooth headsets work fine. Included in the box are an extremely unusual single-ear wired headset and a charger, both of which plug into the bottom USB-C port. My test unit didn’t work with any other USB-C charger or wired headset I tried, which is annoying but not a deal-breaker.
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Battery life is good: 7 hours, 37 minutes of talk time in our tests on the T-Mobile network. That’s longer than most of the other 4G voice phones I’ve tested recently. On standby, the battery will last at least a week.
No Pictures, No Apps
Under the hood, the MP02 runs a stripped-down version of Android 8.1 with BlackBerry security extensions on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 chipset. The system is unrecognizable as Android. “Other than Pigeon/Signal…there are no apps, no tracking, no location services, no sharing,” a company spokesperson told me. “Privacy and security for one’s personal data is very integral to Punkt, and we believe the MP02 is industry-leading in this respect.”
It takes two clicks to unlock the MP02: the power button on the top, and then the action button between the navigation arrows to the left of the keypad. You can add a passcode if you like. Once it’s unlocked, dialing is simple—just dial. Anything else is more complicated. If you get a new text, that’s down, click, click. Two quick action buttons (to jump to your texts and your address book) only work from the home screen, not from anywhere in the UI. There are no dedicated volume keys, and changing the volume during a call is a multi-click process involving looking at the screen.
For texting, you get multilingual predictive text and the ability to receive and view—but not forward or send—picture messages and emoji. You’re not going to type anything long on this phone; if you have a lot to say, it’s best to send voice clips in Pigeon.
Other apps include an alarm, a calculator, a clock, and a stopwatch, as well as calendar and notes apps that are difficult to type into and don’t sync anywhere. The address book’s only sync option is importing VCF files or SIM contacts via USB or Bluetooth. Considering the MP02 runs customized Android, I would have loved to see cloud-based sync for contacts, events, and notes, as well as speech-to-text. I don’t think these conveniences would contradict Punkt’s disconnector philosophy, and on other voice phones, such as the Nokia 6300 and the Sunbeam F1 Daisy, they make a big difference to usability.
There’s no camera and no web browser. There are no games.
The MP02 has one internet feature: It works as a (slow) hotspot for your laptop or smartphone. Testing on T-Mobile’s network, I saw about the same download speeds for the MP02, the Nokia 6300, and the Nuu F4L, but the MP02’s upload speed was slower: 16.2Mbps down and 7.9Mbps up. A Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra in the same location easily achieved 172Mbps down and 49Mbps up.
Like the other voice phones I’ve tested recently, the MP02 has a bare minimum of LTE and shares it out using only a 2.4GHz hotspot. But that dovetails with the principle that you should be getting offline and going out to play.
Messaging, Safely
Now that messaging apps dominate the world, voice phones have an uncomfortable relationship with texting. All voice phones can do simple SMS. Once you get into group messaging, though, they generally fall apart. This phone is no exception: It can receive group texts, but it can’t reply to the group, only to the individual sender of each text.
Some phones, such as the Nokia 6300 and the Nuu F4L, solve this problem by adding Facebook and WhatsApp apps. Digital disconnectors and the security-minded tend to hate these apps because of Facebook’s data-collection practices. So the MP02 goes in a different direction with Pigeon, its Signal client. Signal is both open-source and end-to-end encrypted, and it allows for text, picture, and voice messaging as well as secure calling.
Pigeon runs separately from the standard text messaging app, but it uses the phone’s standard contact books. Like the rest of the MP02’s apps, it has a text-only interface that’s challenging to use. You have to read a 22-page manual to really understand the app, but once you do, it works pretty well.
I successfully tested texts, group messages, voice messages, and encrypted VoIP calls through Pigeon. Messages sent from the MP02 arrived on other phones instantly, but incoming messages were sometimes delayed for up to 10 minutes. This may have to do with battery optimizations that reduce how frequently the MP02 pings the Signal server. Punkt says it’s looking into fixes that will reduce the lag.
Lighter Than Light
Inexpensive voice phones such as the Nokia 225 and the Nokia 6300 don’t really compete with the MP02. Its closest competitor in terms of arty digital-disconnector phones is the Light Phone II, which I’ll be re-reviewing when it gets a software update. The Light Phone II has side volume buttons and a touch screen, which makes texting easier with an on-screen keyboard. But it’s an odd squarish shape, it’s quieter, and the tethering didn’t work well when I tested it in 2019.
If you’re primarily interested in the MP02 for security reasons, the Sunbeam F1 is also worth a look for its extreme simplicity and Sunbeam’s dedication to data privacy.
The Punkt MP02 is a great-looking device that delivers a simple voice experience on both AT&T and T-Mobile with impressively secure (if sometimes delayed) messaging. With its mid-century look and physical buttons, the Punkt MP02 satisfies the craving for modern tech with a vintage esthetic. It’s a classy way to force yourself to disconnect.
