{"id":213139,"date":"2026-01-02T12:18:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T12:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/213139\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T12:18:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T12:18:07","slug":"punkts-german-made-mc03-smartphone-comes-to-the-us-this-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/213139\/","title":{"rendered":"Punkt\u2019s German-made MC03 smartphone comes to the US this spring"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">Punkt, the Switzerland-based, privacy-focused phone maker, is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.punkt.ch\/products\/mc03-premium-secure-smartphone\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">trying the whole \u201csmartphone\u201d thing again<\/a>. The MC03 improves on some of the disappointing features of its previous effort, the MC02, while maintaining its security focus. Likewise, its software still comes with a subscription fee: the first year is included free, but it\u2019s $12 per month after that. On top of that, the MC03 is Punkt\u2019s first phone to be assembled in Europe rather than Asia, making good on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/news\/696421\/made-in-europe\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">its promise from earlier this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">The MC02, released last year, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.digitaltrends.com\/phones\/punkt-mc02-android-phone-so-bad-i-could-not-review-it\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">wasn\u2019t exactly<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tomsguide.com\/phones\/punkt-mc02-phone-review\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a critical darling<\/a>. Punkt seems to be addressing some of those criticisms with a more modern 6.67-inch 120Hz OLED compared to last year\u2019s 60Hz LCD. The 5,200mAh battery is user-replaceable. The MC03 ships with AphyOS, from the equally privacy-oriented company Apostrophy, and it\u2019s based on AOSP 15 \u2014 more current than the AOSP 13-based version the MC02 shipped with, though still a version behind this year\u2019s flagships. The MC03 is IP68 rated, comes with a MediaTek 7300 chipset, and is scheduled to get three OS upgrades and five years of security updates.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">As ever, privacy is a major focus for Punkt. AphyOS claims to strip away the background tracking features of Google\u2019s services, offering proprietary apps for things like email and calendar while letting you run any app from the Play Store in a secure \u201csandbox.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">This is where the fee comes in; since you\u2019re not the product, you\u2019ll need to pay up. The MC03 will cost $699 in the US, and $10 per month after that (though three- and five-year bundle options when you buy the phone can save you some money here). If you plan to use the phone for a few years, that brings the cost in line with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/phones\/762755\/fairphone-6-review-no-longer-compromise\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the $899 Fairphone 6<\/a> \u2014 the highly repairable device running privacy-minded software by Murena. That\u2019s an unfortunate reality: A private, secure personal device doesn\u2019t come cheap, it seems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Punkt, the Switzerland-based, privacy-focused phone maker, is trying the whole \u201csmartphone\u201d thing again. The MC03 improves on some&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[356,342,111,43,139,69,370,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-213139","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-gadgets","9":"tag-mobile","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-tech","15":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}