Punkt MC02 review: this phone is great with privacy, less so with photos

Let's be real. If you buy a smartphone today, you're basically giving Big Tech your data in return for convenience. Which many of us, in principle, hate. But in practice… what're you gonna do, right?

Well, now there's an alternative. Punkt is a Swiss company offering an oasis of privacy among the mass surveillance of Silicon Valley. Its latest device, the MC02, is its most accessible and ambitious effort yet: an Android-based smartphone controlled entirely by you, the owner, and safeguarded against prying corporate eyes by the robust data privacy laws of Switzerland.

Sounds great, right? But what is this unusual camera phone actually like to use in practice? I spent a couple of months with a review model to find out.

Punkt MC02: Key specifications

Design and features

At a glance, the Punkt MC02 looks like a pretty standard Android slab. The chunky plastic build feels substantial yet devoid of any real personality. Turn it on, however, and it immediately distinguishes itself with its stark monochrome interface.

This is a feature, not a bug, of Punkt's own Apostrophy operating system, which is a custom-built version of Android. Rather than the typical colourful app icons, the home screen presents everything in greyscale, and it's quite a shock to the system: your digital life, deliberately drained of stimuli.

So what's the idea? Well, as well as protecting your privacy, the MC02 is also designed to curb your addictive phone behaviours. Because just like in the amusement arcade, beautiful shiny colours make us want to use something more. But Punkt's entire ethos is pointed in the opposite direction. Their revolutionary thought is that maybe we should put our phones down once in a while and, you know, get a life.

The next big departure from convention is less immediately obvious, but starts to reveal itself once you start poking around. The MC02 offers a level of user customisation far beyond anything I've experienced on a modern smartphone.

You can police each installed app's privacy and power demands to the degree you desire, restrict background activity to preserve battery, or fully revoke permissions for ultimate privacy. In short, you are put squarely in the driver's seat. And this sense of control is a sharp contrast to using other phones, where you basically feel everything's been decided for you, and not necessarily in your personal interests.

This, married with a secure Swiss VPN known as Digital Nomad, goes a long way toward living up to the MC02's promise of protecting your data.

But there's a catch. The installed apps we're talking about are all ones you've never heard of, because they're all designed by Punkt. So your email is something called K-9 Mail, your browser is a Chrome-like app called Vanadium. And there are a few more in the Aphy Store, such as a video player called OiTube. You get the idea.

I found all these alternative apps fine to use in practice. There are just a few quirks you have to get used to. For example, Vanadium seems so similar to Chrome that it's a shock when you type a search term into the top bar and it brings up DuckDuckGo by default rather than Google.

That said, Punkt aren't stupid. They know that at least some of their users will want to access download apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and so on. And so the Aphy Store does allow you to sideload Google Play, and then download all the apps you're used to using. These show up in colour in the interface, so they're easily distinguished. And they're sandboxed from the core Apostrophy experience.

Using these popular apps means you won't benefit from the full range of privacy and security features the MC02 has to offer. But it's a nice "third-way" option that I think strikes a compromise between protection and convenience.

Camera

This is an expensive phone, so it must have a nice camera, right? Erm. Not quite. The 64MP main camera may be pixel-rich on paper, but in practice it doesn't deliver very nice-looking images. An 8MP ultrawide lens and a 2MP macro camera add some versatility, though the quality is similarly pedestrian.

Overall, this camera's shots are passable, but not particularly great in anything less than ideal lighting. This is partly about hardware, but also about Punkt's ethos. Modern phones like the iPhone 15 and Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra deliver such great images largely because of the computational software that automatically tweaks them in-camera. The MC02, though, shoots straight: the camera app strips away any AI trickery or oversharpening so common today in mobile imaging.

That means you get an unadulterated photography experience; an image that better reflects the real scene. A philosophical approach which sounds, on the face of it, admirable. But ultimately, that means your photos look dull and uninspiring. And in a world where all your friends are filling social media with stunning-looking shots, is that what anyone really wants?

Performance and battery life

Another basic question to ask is: how fast does the phone run? Well, it depends what you use it for. Sticking to the stripped-down interface provided by Punkt in the box, I found it super-speedy, fluid and responsive. Honestly, there wasn't a moment when I was waiting for something to happen, and that really made a difference to my mood, given how time-pressured I feel these days. (Something for the therapist rather than the review, but it's good to add context).

This was a bit of a surprise, as the hardware in this phone isn't particularly promising. Its mid-range MediaTek Dimensity 900 chip, backed by 6GB of RAM, should be speedy enough for most tasks, for sure, but it's still a long way from flagship pedigree. It just goes to show how software bloat can slow down a phone, just like on a laptop or desktop computer.

Battery life is also good, courtesy of the 5500mAh cell and Punkt's efficient software management. Even with some heavy usage, I found it could easily stretch into a second day off the charger. In fact, at one point, I left it fully charged in a box for two week (while I focused on reviewing another phone) and it still had about 50% charge when I retrieved it later.

Wireless charging support is a boon as well, letting you top up throughout the day without cable clutter. Fast wired charging would have been even more convenient for quickly refueling that capacious battery, but the 18W USB-PD support included here is certainly serviceable if unspectacular.

That said, if you want to download all the Google Play apps on earth and use it as a productivity powerhouse, both the processing speed and the battery life are going to dip right down. But again, that's not what Punkt want you to do with it. If instead, you see it a dependable communications hub – one with phone, messaging, lightweight media editing, and secure mobile hotspot functionality – it turns out to be a great performer.

Price

Now we come to the biggest stumbling block: the high price. At the time of writing, the Punkt MC02 is $749 / €700 / £599. And that's not all. After you've been using it for a year, you'll need to pay a mandatory subscription of 14.99 CHF ($16.52 / €15.28 / £13.15 at the time of writing) to keep using the Apostrophy OS functionality.

By raw specs alone, this is an exorbitant ask for middling phone hardware. If we were just going on component costs, we'd be expecting something closer to half that price. Ultimately, though, you're not paying for the hardware, you're paying for the overall experience provided by this unique design, interface, software and overall philosophy.

In other words, this phone is truly one-of-a-kind. So like anything in the marketplace, its true value is determined by how much you want it.

Should I buy the Punkt MC02?

Creative professionals, particularly those in more corporate environments already wrestling with compliance and data sovereignty, may well find the Punkt MC02 an interesting niche solution that reclaims personal data ownership at the device level.

The Apostrophy software provides not just defensive security but an unmatched level of user transparency and granular controls. And while we think it's expensive for the price, if your company is buying it for you, they may be more interested in its ability to protect valuable corporate data from prying eyes.

At the same time, there's no getting around it: the MC02 is marred by dated hardware, mediocre cameras and general usability constraints. And that makes it difficult to recommend to anyone other than people with a very specific need for privacy and security.

Will it stop you spending too much time on your phone? Well, it's true that the black-and-white interface and restricted access to mainstream apps means I did very little time-wasting stuff on it. Instead, though, I just played about on my tablet and laptop. So it's a bit like switching to alcohol-free beer, but still having wine and spirits in the cupboard. Addictions don't get solved that easily.

So who is this phone for? In short, people who want the ultimate in privacy, and don't care about the cost, or indeed anything else about the phone. Everyone else should, sadly, look elsewhere.