This privacy-first smartphone draws a hard line between trusted apps and everything else

Swiss phone maker Punkt is back at CES 2026 with a familiar message and a slightly more refined pitch. The company has unveiled the MC03, its latest privacy-focused smartphone, aimed at people who want more control over how their phone behaves and how much data it shares. All without completely abandoning modern apps and services.

The MC03 builds on the idea behind the earlier MC02, but Punkt says this new model is more clearly split into two areas. There’s Vault, a locked-down environment designed for trusted, privacy-vetted apps, and Wild Web, a more open space where you can install practically anything, but with visible controls to limit permissions, background activity, and data flows. It’s a cleaner way of formalising something many privacy-conscious users already do manually by keeping safe apps separate from everything else.

A big change this time around is the addition of Proton to the Vault environment. Proton Mail, Calendar, Drive, VPN, and Pass are now available on the MC03 in a space designed to minimise tracking by default. Punkt frames this as a natural partnership between two Swiss companies built around paid software rather than ad-funded data collection. It’s a line that may resonate if you already use Proton’s services elsewhere.

Under the hood, the phone runs AphyOS, Punkt’s hardened operating system, which strips out background services, tracking technologies, and bloatware. A built-in VPN called Digital Nomad is still included, and a feature called Ledger provides app-by-app control over what data each app can access, ranging from sensors to network permissions. There’s also a new carbon-reduction view inside Ledger, which shows the energy impact of installed apps and lets you rein in background activity if desired.

Unlike the MC02, the MC03 doesn’t lean quite so heavily on the “software over hardware” argument. The phone is manufactured in Germany and comes with a 120Hz OLED display, IP68 water and dust resistance, a removable 5,200mAh battery, and a 64MP main camera. None of that makes it a flagship spec monster, but it’s solid enough that the privacy pitch no longer feels like it’s asking you to accept obvious compromises up front.

As before, Punkt is sticking with a subscription model. The MC03 costs €699 / CHF699 / £610 and includes a year of AphyOS service. After that, you’ll need to pay €9.99 per month (or opt for discounted multi-year bundles) to keep using the OS’s secure services. That’s still a psychological hurdle in a market used to free (monetarily, at least) software, even if the company is upfront about what you’re paying for and why.

The Punkt MC03 is now available for pre-order in Europe, with deliveries expected by the end of January. Some mainstream Android buyers might be reluctant to give up their Pixels or Galaxies, but as a more polished take on the privacy-first phone concept, it appears to be a clear step up from its predecessor.