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On the one hand, I get that they’re trying to go as minimalistic as possible, and so this phone makes a lot of concessions. On the other hand… the experience o

On the one hand, I get that they’re trying to go as minimalistic as possible, and so this phone makes a lot of concessions. On the other hand… the experience of using this phone seems worse than a Nokia 3310 two decades ago, especially when it comes to texting. Typing on that little hardware keyboard was unbeatable, and far better than relying on voice recognition. If I were switching to a dumbphone I’d want it to at least be as good as that (bonus points if the battery life was just as good; even less distraction). Are there no old-school dumb phones anymore? Have they all moved on?

lancesells 3y ago
Checking eBay there are plenty of old-school dumb phones to be had. I don't know if they work on modern networks but you could get an old school phone every year for the rest of your life on eBay.
hedora 3y ago
I've looked a bit, and realized what I really want is a distraction-free phone that's otherwise fully functional. None of these things are a problem: - podcast + music streaming - local search + navigation - high end camera (I don't care if my daily driver phone costs $100 or $1000+ as long as it lasts > 4 years) - sms + signal - phone calls - mobile payments (including shitty parking apps, plane tickets, etc) - internet of sh*t controller apps (car, appliances, etc). - weather - calendar - email - document scanning and file management The main problems are: - web browser - news apps So, basically, what I want is a mobile phone ecosystem where the apps don't assume a web browser is installed (local search, mobile payments, my car, weather, tickets, etc, etc, apps all assume a web browser), and where I can uninstall the web browser and the news app. On the other hand, I'd like to live in a world where you don't need to install a bunch of malicious code on your machine in order to do basic day-to-day things, which would push me towards that web-browser-only phone OS that Mozilla tried to build. I don't have a great solution. The only thing I can think of is that, in the same way that businesses are legally required to accept cash, they should also be legally required to provide a sane, supported API so third party apps and operating systems can use their services (yes; I know that this is impractical too).

lancesells 3y ago

Checking eBay there are plenty of old-school dumb phones to be had. I don't know if they work on modern networks but you could get an old school phone every year for the rest of your life on eBay.

hedora 3y ago

I've looked a bit, and realized what I really want is a distraction-free phone that's otherwise fully functional. None of these things are a problem: - podcast + music streaming - local search + navigation - high end camera (I don't care if my daily driver phone costs $100 or $1000+ as long as it lasts > 4 years) - sms + signal - phone calls - mobile payments (including shitty parking apps, plane tickets, etc) - internet of sh*t controller apps (car, appliances, etc). - weather - calendar - email - document scanning and file management The main problems are: - web browser - news apps So, basically, what I want is a mobile phone ecosystem where the apps don't assume a web browser is installed (local search, mobile payments, my car, weather, tickets, etc, etc, apps all assume a web browser), and where I can uninstall the web browser and the news app. On the other hand, I'd like to live in a world where you don't need to install a bunch of malicious code on your machine in order to do basic day-to-day things, which would push me towards that web-browser-only phone OS that Mozilla tried to build. I don't have a great solution. The only thing I can think of is that, in the same way that businesses are legally required to accept cash, they should also be legally required to provide a sane, supported API so third party apps and operating systems can use their services (yes; I know that this is impractical too).