I’d like to get away from phones with a backlight, at least for my next non-smartphone.
There are eink phones.
Nowadays your best bet is e-ink, I think I’ve heard of a few examples, but they’re rather expensive for the specs you get
They are also very Chinese and closed and without a proper Google Play store. I used a HiSense 5c pro as daily phone (hope I have the name right).
Bought it because I’m quite interested in eink. It is interesting to use and it is really usable. It is ok to read text on. I was not able to root it and was thus a bit locked in. The lock screen couldn’t be adapted to my liking and I did not fully trust in what spying it might be doing (like Google location tracking and such).
FYI, Passive Matrix doesn’t mean monochrome. Passive Matrix were color too. If you’re actually looking for a reflective monochrome LCD, you probably want STN aka Supertwist LCD.
I’m not aware of any STN smartphones. Others have already rightly posted eink is likely a better fit for what you want.
TCL make those NXTpaper phones, but I have no idea if they’re any good.
