When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works

Home / News / Runcible smartphone looks rural, promotes peace

Runcible smartphone looks rural, promotes peace

Constant notifications are messing up your mind, man

Ooh, it looks like a really harmless Eye of Sauron.

Eye of Sauron: Elvish Edition. The dwarfs prefer a swarthier smartphone; something like a Kyocera Torque. Humans, of course, are vain and all have gold iPhones. Gandalf probably has a Galaxy Note 4 with a custom magical stylus with which he can take notes on fauna gossip. “Oh, really, little Jaziekal the Jumpy? She said that, did she? Let me make a note of that.”

What about the nasty little Hobbitses?

Not big phone users, really. What with most of them either technophobic or too meaded up to work a smartphone, the Middle Earth mobile industry has kinda swerved the Shire.

We should probably talk about the…

… Runcible! Yes, we should. This wooden pebble of a smartphone is not in fact designed for the fleet-footed forest folk, but it is intended for the clear-minded, squeaky-souled zen-geek-about-town. It’s the anti-smartphone, say its creators, and it will never vibrate, nor beep, nor impose itself on your day.

Sounds unhelpful. What can it do?

Oh, all of your normal smartphone things. It has 4G and Wi-Fi and NFC and Bluetooth, but it also has a round screen, particularly designed to be less suitable for viewing your Twitter feed. We know that it’ll give you directions to somewhere, in a old-school compass way. Plus, we’ve seen a clock face for it on which gradually expanding coloured circles indicate how fervent your social networks are getting. Though what you can do about it is less clear.

Intriguing. Where can I take a look at this Runcible?

Nowhere, yet. Creaters Monohm have only been working on it for 10 months, so it’s not ready for selling. But rest assured, the flaming, all-seeing Eye of Stuff will be looking out for this wearable-cum-smartphone to make an appearance.

Feeling impulsive?The best bargain smartphones reviewed

Profile image of Fraser Macdonald Fraser Macdonald consulting editor

About

Fraser used to wear a Psion Series 3 palmtop in a shoulder holster. Perhaps he still does.Either way, his lifelong mission - including fourteen years for Stuff - has been to see whether the consumer electronics industry can ever replicate that kind of cyborgian joy.So far: nope. Despite a plan to combine a action camera and Olympus Eye-Trek goggles to become Man Who Sees The Vision Of A Man Three Inches Taller Than Himself.He also likes mountain bikes, motorbikes, cars, helicopters. Still thinks virtual surround is witchcraft. Dislikes jetskis, despite never having been on one.