Ask HN: What is the best “dumb” phone?
Due to privacy and time management concerns, I have decided to take the jump and get rid of my smart phone. Unsurprisingly, there are very few of resources online about which dumb phones are the best. Those of you who use a non-smart phones, which model is it and how do you like it?
223 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 225 ms ] threadMom, on the phone: "I can't HEAR you again! Go and GET yourself a DECENT phone! I am going to BUY you one myself! ..." After this, my phone almost always died.
An excellent phone, though. Saved me from smartphones (I've never owned one). It also served well as a bottle opener when I was a student.
https://metro.co.uk/2015/04/18/this-is-how-you-use-your-old-...
I suppose I should say "timeless Finnish design" now. :)
It's a SwissOne (don't know which model exactly) for about 30€. The battery life is great (runs more than a week) and it even has dual SIM support.
Interestingly, I could not find (in that shop) any phone without a color screen and camera. Really, I just want a phone for calls and SMS.
The one downside of that phone is that the audio volume on calls is really low, even when set to the maximum. That makes it difficult to have conversations on busy streets. In the future, I would pick one of those phones targeting senior citizens (with the huge buttons).
Personally, I was eyeing Nokia 3310 (relaunched version)[2].
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15261955
[2] https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/nokia-3310
I ended up never using it because there wasn't any way of of getting my contacts from my iPhone to it and I'm not spending several hours keying in my contacts.
I was expecting a UI/UX building on the decades of patterns used in most "feature phones" but this seems to be some from-scratch reinvention which did not hit the mark for me.
* Terrible MMS/group chat support (and bugs, e.g. messages showing up in previews but not in the actual channel)
* Inconsistent notifications
* Un-removable built in apps (that auto-install on first open)
I still use it but based on this thread I'm going to be following the Punkt MP02 (although $350 seems ridiculous). Or maybe at some point I'll get around to building that custom dumb phone I've always wanted...
I previously used the samsung A727 which I actually thought was great but is hard to find any more.
The first problem was that it would keep the display on as long as a key was pressed. That would kill the battery quickly.
The second problem was that the phone would happily dial 911 without unlocking the keypad. My city has asked that phones be configured to not be able to do that. As a result I had to return the phone.
Currently using an ancient Samsung A157. Flip phones solve the keypad lock problem entirely. Dunno what I will do for a phone if it breaks.
Anything with LTE (aside from iDevices) seems to run a Linux kernel with a stripped down Android or FirefoxOS on top. They have simplified UIs if that's what you're looking for, but they also have security holes out the wazoo (you can frequently get a root adb shell via usb with a stock config), and will never see updates.
To top that off, the available "dumb" phones with LTE often don't support US LTE bands. (glares at useless nokis 8810 4g)
You might get away with a pre-LTE device that's a legit dumbphone, but those networks are rapidly dying. :-(
This has been a concern of mine, and why instead I've moved to simply turning off my wifi and cell service when not using them.
I installed "HereWeGO", a GPS app with great support for offline maps. Between that, podcasts, and music I can go quite long without using any data.
(Or as a middle ground I drop down to wifi with DND on, and check for incoming messages every once in a while)
Of the blogpost on how to make a dumber phone https://nomasters.io/posts/dumber-phone/
Is it just that you can use a dumb phone on friday night without violating the sabbath (can you?)?
Is there a religious doctrine that explicitly prohibits general purpose computing devices in the home?
More information here: https://www.quora.com/What-are-Kosher-cell-phones
No idea how they justify using a dumb phone doesn't trigger the work clause.
Seems to me if you're looking for loopholes and workarounds just so you can do what you need to do on certain days of the week, then the rules might be silly.
https://goo.gl/images/5VbHYW
I like it a lot. It's cheap, simple, and has great battery life; I charge it perhaps once during the week or so I'm using it. I paid £18 for mine unlocked.
My favourite antifeature is that it has no camera. Most dumbphones have a camera in them that's so poor it's not worth having. This one doesn't bother with one at all, which means there's no camera option cluttering up the menus.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/light-phone-2
It's not as cheap as most "dumb" phones (~$300), but I for me its exactly what I wanted to reclaim my attention.
There's also the Lightphone and forthcoming Lightphone II.
That being said, these won't really address privacy concerns per se. They don't support signal or other encrypted messaging (the lightphone II may in the future???). So the only way they would be more 'private' would be due to the fact that you'll use your phone for less and in so doing, share less data. Your texts and calls will still be pretty visible if that's a concern.
I love the look of that phone, except for the huge logo on the front. I wonder if there is a way to strip that off without damaging the plastic.
Punkt patched many critical bugs in the month after initial release of the MP02 in December. https://www.punkt.ch/en/inspiration/news/s/mp02-software-upd...
I've since purchased a portable music player, a separate camera and an old fashioned A-Z map for my local area. If you can't see why I might want to do this rather than have a small smartphone that does it all then you haven't realised how much of a problem these devices can be for some people like myself who find themselves unable to control their own willpower.
What I find now is that I have a device specifically for the intention that I want to use it for. I want to read? I pick up a book, I'm not distracted and my attention span has increased. I want to listen to music? I go to HDTracks and buy a super high quality version of the album and listen intently. Want to take pictures? Really actually take pictures that you'll use and value rather than a phone full of photos that will likely never get viewed again.
Punkt's philosophy is similar and I really really respect them as a company taking this line because it's very niche but I feel it's very necessary in today's world. Love that company <3
I really like the idea of doing things intently, but I'm not sure how to manage these practical things
I personally use a double-sim 2G nokia 216 i got for ~50e. Has a flashlight, can hold some music, has radio, low-def photo, timers. edge is painfully slow and no hotspot ability so i actually disconnect from internet when i'm not in some kind of office: no email, no chat, concise sms, i'm forced to call people and i'm rediscovering how talking actually works well for efficient communication.
This is really interesting...
For what it's worth, your location metadata probably uniquely identifies you (nearest cell tower to work + home), and Target probably knows who you are just from their security cameras, so this still isn't paranoid enough if "state actors are interested in me personally" is in your threat model. The "correct" thing to do in this case is to leave your phone at home and/or at work.
If your "dumbphone" doesn't support VoLTE you'll be frustrated with dropped calls and spotty service everywhere. I know this from experience.
I settled on T-Mobile's only "dumbphone" - the Alcatel GoFlip [1]. It supports LTE, the battery lasts for days and it even has a rudimentary IMAP and CalDAV client.
I tried turning my smartphone into a "dumbphone" and using it less, but I honestly lacked the self-control to put the stupid thing down. Having a kid made me realize how many moments I was pissing away just scrolling.
These things are designed to be addictive, and some people (like myself) can't compete with the entire teams of "engagement engineers" many tech companies employ to exploit your dopamine-reward cycles.
I had forgotten what it was like to be alone with my thoughts. I feel as though I am rediscovering a part of my brain that was suppressed by having a boredom-prevention device at my fingertips all these years. Also other humans now look like phone-zombies everywhere I look. It's kind of dystopian honestly.
[1] https://us.alcatelmobile.com/alcatel-go-flip/
I use a HiBy R3 [1] with a 512gb SD card to listen to my collection of ripped FLACs on the go. It's a great device, highly recommend!
https://store.hiby.com/products/hiby-r3
Does more engagement equal app usefulness and adoption? I don't know. I have a lot of apps on my phone I don't touch as often but when I go and clean out apps I don't use anymore I still keep some because I still find them useful to have even if I don't engage with that much
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/08/meet-the-tech-company-that...
[2] https://www.boundless.ai/
Obviously no. I think it is fairly obvious that there are many apps that are highly engaging that are a huge waste of time for many people.
No, but it equals more ad impressions.
Just this morning I saw someone take a brief pause while crossing the street to look at her phone unaware that a car was coming. She stopped in the middle! of the street. The car screeched to a halt and missed hitting her by nothing.
The thing is, most of these people are (most likely) not even looking at something important, just their social media or messaging apps.
I noticed a girl who was talking to someone on the phone. She hanged and put the phone in her pocket. Not 10 seconds later she took it out and just started scrolling while walking past me.
Obviously, it's a very bad thing when someone decides not to leave her mental cave while strolling through traffic (worse still if she's behind the wheel). I just think it's a more humanistic view than the zombie angle.
Interestingly, they are also no longer activating 4G devices unless they support HD Voice, so the iPhone 5s and 5c are out even though they support LTE.
[1] https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/knowledge-base-21881...
Got a wife/husband/best friend that you trust? Use iOS or Android's built in systems for restricting what you can do on your phone, from what websites you can visit to being able to install apps, and lock them in place with a pin... that your trusted partner sets. Now you have no choice.
Worked for me.
I would blame app designers, but I uninstalled all of them and ended up pissing away most of the day on HackerNews, so I think they're mostly blameless in my case.
All of us HN commenters are also engagement designers. If not in our day jobs, then at least in an amateur capacity in text.
You never know what you'll get when you reload (after some time has passed) (Random reinforcement.) Also, if you comment, you get random reinforcement in the form of (hopefully nice) replies and upvote points.
Ranking stories on the front page based on voting also is intended to draw an audience with similar interests.
Right. Necessity is the mother of all invention. Boredom can be a powerful necessity. If it weren't for the crushing boredom of the suburbs in the 80's, I would never have learned to code at the age of 11.
Keeping with the analogy of hurdles. It's like, successful startup is a 20 ft wall. Deciding to workout 3x a week is a 3ft hurdle. Getting a fitbit and targeting more walking is like a 2ft hurdle (my scales not everyone's). Getting over loneliness due to not having a cell phone is a 5 ft hurdle. It'd require getting out of the house a lot more and that anxiety can be crippling. If that was a goal of mine I'd train for it just like a marathon. You don't start by running the whole thing in the first week, you start with increasingly large goals.
I totally agree that blindly saying adversity is good, is a crazy over simplification. I also think we (if you are in top 60% of tax brackets just to really bound that statement) have it exceptionally easy in the USA and that we are all capable of much more than we think we are.
Not everyone can do a startup, but many of us have lost the concept of setting a goal and pushing ourselves (myself included).
Thanks for calling me out. A quote from T. R. could be seen as snarky as well. This really is a personal thing. I should have really put a caveat that this applies to me. Just me. I think more people would benefit from the mentality, but I also don't believe in a society that pushes artificial adversity to "make people better" that'd be bad.
Loneliness can be forced on you. I personally moved and since some girls at the new school decided (in the locker room) that I was lesbian, folks stopped talking to me. I found a very small group of friends the next year at high school.
These girls were half correct in their assessment, but that was no reason for the entirety of a school to decide I wasn't worth talking to.
Seriously, loneliness is awful. I should mention that I had no issues asking folks out later in life (when I became interested in such things).
This sort of thing might have been more common pre-internet times. The internet made me less lonely because I found folks I liked to talk to.
One claim made was that poverty and loneliness are two of the most difficult scarcity traps to be in. Even more so than hunger (especially in the developed world). Because poverty and loneliness push you into behaviors that only perpetuate more poverty and loneliness. You can see this with the rise of toxic misogynistic groups on the Internet, and I personally see this with my more awkward, lonely friends and acquaintances who put off new company with desperate, weird, or standoffish behavior.
Loneliness is curable, but requires effort.
I'm happy you solved yours. I'm happy I solved mine. But I know not everyone can have the stroke of luck to change things like I have. Lots of folks have little choice, in part because of financial woes, mental illness, age, and so on.
NOt everyone is like you. Loneliness has never been a great motivator for me, and though I don't suffer from it like I did 10 years ago, the entire thing has left me with a negative view of people and their willingness to accept folks that are different - especially when they "should know better".
That last bit has been key to my own "cure", as I'm an immigrant and folks don't assume the same things.
Note that I'm paying more to have this experience, but it's been totally worth it. So far I've been quite happy with it. It's amazing how, in the odd times where I've needed to carry my phone with me, how I instantly reverted to my former (bad) habits.
It's a form of commitment device and it's been very effective for me.
What I've done is started putting the phone in do not disturb and airplane modes when I'm not expecting a call.
Anecdote: I used to have an LG dumbphone with AT&T (I'd purchased it with prepaid time at the airport). A few years ago they sent me a message to come to their store and have it replaced for free because it would stop working with their planned "network updates".
I did that and got an Alcatel dumb phone. Not sure if it's using LTE or whatever G, but it works well and I'm reasonably happy with it. I do wish it was a flip-phone like the LG, because I've butt-dialed 911 a few times with it.
(They did initially give me what must've been a used phone, since it had over 50 personal contacts from someone else on it, but that's a different story...)
Did you remove the browsers and app store as well? I got rid of everything except for phone/texting, Slack (for work), and non-bingy convenience apps like Maps/Yelp/etc. On Android, it can be done with the adb shell without rooting, even the 'uninstallable' apps like Google search and the Samsung browser. Not sure about Apple.
I tried this before without getting rid of the Play Store and found that I would just cheat and download FF Focus when I felt like binging and then deleting it again when I was done. Now if I think I need a new app, I actually have to go on my laptop, download the apk, and move it to my phone to install it. It's not foolproof but it's enough extra steps to where I don't act on it on impulse.
It's worked really well and I don't binge like I used to . I still have some compulsive phone-checking habits but it's way less time consuming than compulsive-random-article-reading/scrolling. And I also get to keep the nicer benefits like the good camera and the large screen for when I need a GPS.
I still keep an old iPhone for when I know I'll need an Uber or something, but the smartphone isn't a part of my daily life anymore.
It's possible with adb or root, but buy a $500-$800 device for removing basic apps? Failed logic IMHO.
> Not sure about Apple.
You can't.
This might count as a dumb phone for your intended purposes, given how it separates the baseband from the CPU and has killswitches.
Calling/texting with a dumbphone might actually be worse, from a privacy perspective, than using something like Whatsapp (until Whatsapp was acquired by Facebook).
Though to be fair to smartphones, my Samsung galaxy has an "ultra power saving" mode that puts the display into grayscale, uses a special app launcher and only allows access to a handful of applications. In that mode I can get about two weeks of battery life.
It's intended to be hackable. The base phone is pure WiFi, but there will probably be an LTE add-on.
So far it looks like most people want 4G, even though it's quite expensive to add. I think too many marketing dollars have been spent convincing consumers that's what they need, so we may end up doing 4G before others. But you're right, 2G (or 3G) would both be cheaper and probably all you need for a dumb phone.
The nice thing, though, is unlike most phones it should be pretty easy for anyone with electronics skills to make a daughterboard that expands the phone hardware capabilities.
· It has some size limit (I'm not sure what) on the attachments it can feasibly receive from other phones, and the default photo size for iPhones is larger than that, which means if a family member texts me a photo, I often can't download it. This isn't a big problem for me, because I tell them to email me instead, but it's still present.
· It lacks many newer emoji characters, which is only a problem if I'm texting people who use a lot of emoji, in which case their messages will have a bunch of mysterious blank boxes at the end.
· It has some kind of problem validating newer SSL certs, so the handful of services that do talk to the internet are at this point broken. I don't use any of them, so it's not a problem for me, but if I did, I'd have been out of luck.
I should also add that dumbphones are a real mixed bag when it comes to security. If I wanted to communicate with someone without eavesdropping, then I'm out of luck with a dumbphone: everything is just not-particularly-secure texting and calling. In my own case, I simply don't think of my phone as being a trusted device: that's what my laptop is for. However, if you really want to be security-conscious with your phone, I think the right thing might be to get an Android phone, install LineageOS on it, don't install any of the Google services, and be very limited in what apps you add.
[1] https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/24/nokia-8110-4g/
Punkt MP02 https://www.punkt.ch/en/products/mp02-4g-mobile-phone/
Light Phone https://www.thelightphone.com
Light Phone 2 https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/light-phone-2
Nokia 3310 https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/nokia-3310
If you want both smartphones and don't want to get distracted during office hours or private time.
Doesn't deliver until July 2019 though...