Imagine a smartphone that doesn't track your every move and harvest your data. That's the pitch of German company Punkt (pronounced "poonkt," after the German word for "period"), which has been making privacy-minded handsets for years. In a private hotel room during CES 2026, I got hands-on time with its next smartphone, the MC03, which keeps data private and extends battery life far beyond what conventional smartphones are capable of.

Most smartphones use either Apple's iOS or Google's Android operating systems, and apps on both harvest your data. The MC03, running on an Android open source project-based system called AphyOS, is designed from the ground up with the opposite approach. It packs the company's own alternative suite of communication and productivity apps that have no data collection or privacy infringing features. If desired, people can download some conventional Android apps through the Google Play Store, but these are sandboxed so they can't siphon data from other apps. 

Though Punkt also has a minimalist "dumb" phone line with the MPO2, the upcoming MC03 (which has started delivering units to Europe and will start shipping to the US in spring) is a full-fledged $700 smartphone that iterates on its predecessor, the MCO2. It adds a few notable hardware upgrades, like switching to a 120Hz OLED display and making the battery easily removable and replaceable (by the user or through Punkt, either of which costs $50), as well as better cameras. Despite the swappable battery, the phone is still IP68 certified to keep out dust and water, with a rear cover that I was able to pop off and snap back on securely during my in-person preview.

The privacy-at-all-costs approach for the MC03 has some big pros and cons, deriving from a lot of the lesser-known ways modern phone software operates. For instance, Android updates are free for consumers, but phonemakers using the operating system share user data with Google. As Punkt is a company ideologically opposed to sharing its users' information, it charges a subscription fee -- $12 a month, or $120 for a year -- to ensure privacy as well as adding features, secure apps and AphyOS updates. 

"When you take [the MC03] out of the box, it's completely disconnected from Google. So nothing on this device tries to share any data with Google," said Yanapi Senaud, global head of sales and marketing at Punkt. "We don't collect data and sell it to anyone, so therefore we have to pay for [development] somehow."

To the average person, a monthly software subscription is a surprising and steep cost on top of the $700 baseline price of the MC03. Some people may literally not value their privacy at $12 a month. Those who buy the phone but don't pay the subscription will still be able to get critical security updates but will lack some functionality, like camera features or the ability to download apps.

But those who do think it's a worthy expense will reap the other benefits of a phone that doesn't leak data. One of those benefits? It'll last up to six days without charging, Punkt says. 

How the MC03 can get nearly a week of battery life

Smartphones these days have many apps running in the background -- some predatorily peeking into other apps to pilfer data, others simply humming along fetching info from their services on a regular cadence. Sending and retrieving those data packets saps battery life. While some of this can be mitigated within app settings or a typical phone's operating system, there's a level of data exchange to and from a phone that happens anyway. 

The MC03 puts far more control of that data flow in your hands. By default, it keeps apps cut off from the internet. Without all that background data fetching, Punkt says its phone lasts for days longer than any other smartphone.

"The battery capacity is actually incredible. You have actually four or five, even up to six days of battery life because the whole OS is so light, and we didn't have to put in a 10 times bigger battery," Senaud said.

To prove that point, Senaud said that the MC03 unit in my hands was the same one the Punkt team had been showing off since Sunday. I met with him on Wednesday afternoon, and the phone was down to 57% -- without recharging, Senaud added. 

Many phones these days will single out which apps are using the most battery life. The MC03 has the same feature, framing it as a "carbon ledger" to draw an even more direct causality between the apps people use and how much energy it takes to run them.

A lot of MC03's battery savings come down to its privacy settings, which are intensely limited compared to typical Android phones. For granular control over data, the MC03's AphyOS splits its apps into two buckets. The first, located in what the company calls the Vault, are a mix of Punkt-made versions of popular apps -- like calendar, contacts and email that can serve as alternatives to the Google suite -- and apps from privacy-minded companies like Proton. Punkt assures that anything in the Vault doesn't share user data, and the company plans to continue adding more for subscribers. 

"Any app that goes into the vault -- app, email, VPN, calendar -- we know where the data is going, and it's going to a secure service in Switzerland where they have strict sovereign privacy rules," said Vico Miniutti, chief product officer at Punkt. "No data is leaked for data harvesting to any other obscure servers around the world."

The second bucket is for people who absolutely must have popular Android apps available through the Google Play Store. These can be downloaded and used at the phone owner's risk, though Punkt says they'll all be sandboxed so they can't talk to (or pilfer data from) each other. 

But the MC03 also includes a way to mitigate some of the data leakage in the form of a security dial that can be manually tweaked in every app's settings. At 1, the app operates mostly like it does on any normal phone with processes running in the background. But at 5, it's locked down and cut off from the internet and the phone's sensors, sharing no data. The fifth level is the default, and if you dial it back manually, the app resets to 5 after three days.

Restricting apps from using data is just one way the MC03's battery lasts longer than other phones. The operating system also contributes. In a test running two identical MC03 models with Punkt's AphyOS installed on one and stock Android on the other, the team left both phones alone for 24 hours -- and Miniutti says the device with Punkt's OS stayed at 100%, while the one with Google's OS installed dropped down to 92%.

How far does Punkt go for privacy?

It's safe to say that most phone owners don't think too hard about privacy. Despite the App Store and Google Play Store listing the extensive permissions apps require, they're still downloaded en masse. The lengths that the MC03 goes to keep user data from escaping the phone are extreme by comparison.

Yet Punkt goes further for its ideals, like in vetting apps. It takes around 20 days for the team to discuss and evaluate an app for its Vault to ensure data is protected -- the MC03 launches with support for the Proton suite of software, which also keeps user data in secure servers in Switzerland. The phone will launch with 20 trusted apps for its Vault, with others added on a monthly basis, Senaud said. Punkt hopes to reach around 100 by the year's end, but the list will always be curated by the Punkt team.

Punkt's focus extends to the provenance of its handsets, too. They're built in Germany in a factory under Gigaset, a venerable company that produced landline phones once used across Europe and now makes smartphones. In partnering with the phonemaker, Punkt gets access to Gigaset's supply chain, which Miniutti says should insulate them from other issues that may cause phone prices to increase this year, like the RAM shortage. 

That privacy focus aligns with a commitment to repairability, in keeping with European legal requirements. For example, Punkt will provide spare parts for the MC03 for seven years, in accordance with EU law. They'll repair breakages within warranty for free, though they'll also sell things like screen replacement kits and batteries through their online shop if people want to fix issues themselves, Miniutti said.

Such a commitment to privacy does make things harder for Punkt in some ways. EU law requires some features to be present in newly built smartphones, like emergency satellite SOS connectivity, so Punkt had to build that in. 

While the MC03 is the company's next flagship, they've got others in the pipeline. Sometime next year, they plan on revealing a product called the MC01 -- a device that resembles the BlackBerry phones of yore with a physical keyboard, 4:3 ratio display above it and flagship specs. And of course, as a Punkt phone, it will have something no other mainstream device does: a serious commitment to keeping your data with you.