HMD Barbie Phone Review: Plastic Fantastic?

As a bearded, 47-year-old, fat guy who dresses like a ’90s grunge troll and likes geeky technology, hockey, beer and rock, I don’t think HMD’s new phone is really for me. It’s called Barbie Phone and was released in collaboration with Barbie brand owner Mattel.

It looks like a mobile Barbie that was in the movie that came out last year, or that came as an accessory if you bought a Barbie doll around the turn of the millennium. It’s bright pink, of course, with Barbie-themed embellishments on the details and a charming flip design that you can open or close with the click of your wrist.

The £100 basic phone comes with a plethora of accessories, from Barbie stickers and glittering, adhesive ‘crystals’, to two additional Barbie-designed shells and a wristband-style carrying strap, to which you can attach more of the included Barbie phones can hang. -themed trinkets. So you can take your Barbie mobile and easily double the Barbie factor.

Not much beneath the pink surface

As a mobile phone it is actually highly uninteresting. It is one of HMD’s so-called feature phones, unsmart mobile phones with classic keyboards instead of touch, a proprietary system without access to additional apps, minimal memory and not a lot of features or connectivity options.

In fact, it appears to be the 2022 HMD Nokia 2660 flip phone, but with a new body and a few extra Barbie corner features in the system.

By Barbie corner I mean a pastel lock screen with a Barbie-B in the background, specially designed pink icons in the features menu, a fake ‘missed call from Ken’ message on startup, beach themed ‘Malibu Snake’ instead of the usual Snake as the only game, and a comically mistranslated “Barbie mediation” that’s supposed to be a mediation tool. It’s a timer, you get a chime sound when it counts to zero. That’s about it.

The range of features in the phone is otherwise the same as in most of HMD’s simpler feature phones. Calls, contacts book, SMS, calendar that you can’t sync with anything, clock with alarm, calculator, converter for units of measurement and currency, voice memo app, FM radio, photo gallery for real photos and video player for real movies.

Mattias Inge

Simple and substandard camera

The problem with the photo functions is that the camera is downright lousy. at 0.3 megapixels it produces 640 x 480 pixels at best. And even those pixels are disturbingly blurry, spotty in detail and both pale and mottled in color. Filming becomes even more depressing.

You only get one camera, on the back. So taking a selfie means setting a ten-second timer, folding your phone, turning it over and hoping for the best. There’s a glossy mirror on the outside to help you aim, but it’s probably most useful for checking that your lipstick and eyeliner are in the right place. The mirror is actually semi-transparent and has a small screen built in that displays the time and date. It’s pretty cool though.

You can actually access the internet via a 4G connection (Wi-Fi not available) using an Opera Mini browser. Some sites actually load into it. I can Google it, read some news sites and check the weather. But trying to access my email this way is virtually impossible. It is intended for advanced and active types of sites.

Mattias Inge

What’s the point?

How does Barbie feel about this? In all but the surface, not very Barbie at all. Mattel’s own dolls, at least these days, are supposed to give girl power vibes with Barbies in successful professional roles, but this is a mobile that wasn’t even good enough for that at the turn of the millennium.

Last year’s film was an unexpectedly fun satirical comedy about gender roles and consumerism, but it seems like HMD missed it, or got it completely wrong. Even Barbie deserves to be taken seriously, but this one feels like it was created by a misogynistic Ken. It should at least be possible to take a decent selfie and post it on social media in 2024. And read a damn email.

Is this just me hating feature phones? Most of us ditched the dumbphones when the iPhone came along and paved the way for the current era of smartphones, with real screens, QWERTY keyboards, connectivity and apps. But some have found their way back to these feature-less phones, out of nostalgia or to escape the stress of being constantly online.

HMD also sells them as a ‘relaxation option’. “A telephone without distractions”. But there goes the nostalgia factor of the Nokia classics, and I’m more distracted by the fact that I can’t even comfortably type a short text message without wanting to throw the phone against the wall, glitter and all. Is there anything else that could make a simpler mobile a winner? Maybe the battery lasts, but it only lasts a long time because there isn’t much activity to do, which can drain the battery. The calling time is even clearly better on most smartphones.

Mattias Inge

The price tag also takes its toll

For example, I’m frantically searching the settings menus, the accompanying manual, and online (on another mobile) for a way to set a frustratingly misinterpreting autocorrector’s text input to multi-press mode, with no success.

The annoying spongy buttons don’t make me happy either. There is actually a better HMD Barbie, with a faster processor, more memory, WiFi, 5Mp camera and a smart system of apps. But only in the US, which is a shame.

HMD wants £100 for this mobile, a price for which you could get a good budget smartphone instead. HMD’s Nokia 2660, which is basically the same mobile phone but not the Barbie brand, costs just £64.99.

Is a pink shell and some bling worth almost double? Hardly. Even many slightly cheaper smartwatches today can handle text input, messaging and communication in a significantly better way than HMD Barbie. And they don’t cost more.

Mattias Inge

And I doubt any child will be happy with this mobile that can’t do what a mobile should be able to do, unless they’re a Barbie super fan. You can’t take decent photos, listen to music without file transfer via USB or send a message to the family WhatsApp group.

If you’re thinking about a feature phone to protect your daughter from online threats, there are great parental control tools for real smartphones instead. For example, the excellent Skyline from HMD, which is also available in cheerful pink.

When I feel like I want to affirm my or someone else’s inner Barbie, I’d rather buy one, go to the nearest store and get some of my own Barbie stickers to print there, and download an Android launcher with a pink princess theme. Is it available? I’m sure it is.

Specifications

• Manufacturer: HMD
• System circuit: Unisoc T107, Cortex-A7 1 GHz
• Memory: 64MB
• Storage: 128 MB, microSD slot
• Display: 2.8-inch LCD screen, 240 x 320 pixels
• Camera: 0.3 MP with LED on the back
• Connections: USB-C 2.0, 3.5mm headset
• Notice: 4G, Bluetooth 5.0, FM radio
• Operating system: S30 with Barbie user interface
• Other: Dual SIM, shell and carrying strap
• Battery: 1 450 mAh, about 10 hours of talk time
• Mate: 10.84 x 5.51 x 1.89 cm
• Weight: 124g