22 ms·

Some young adults disconnecting with 'dumbphones'

122 points by wyclif 13y ago

pessimizer 13y ago
I'm hopelessly hanging on to my N900; ancient OS on obsolete hardware. Neo900 gives me some chance of being able to carry this thing around for a couple of years longer. But: I will never own a personal (not for development) Android or iPhone. They're bad products dominated by vendors who hate their own customers, and plot against them in order to enable business strategies based on restricting choice. Right now, with this 'healthy' market of 2 vendors (for how many billion people?), dumbphone here I come...
- hack_edu 13y ago
  For what its worth, pretty much every world market out there is dominated by vendors that make bad products and rarely care. Usually just a few, even.
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    Not the healthy ones. Healthy ones have a wide variety of choices, and the competition nipping at your heels keeps user-hating features out of the product. Right now the two smartphone operating systems are being made by two companies who are in court for colluding on hiring. That's the worst possible market, and as you would expect, it produces trash. One thing I'm looking forward to with my future dumbphones are how disposable they are if they turn out to be horrible.
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      Would you please name some of these "healthy" markets?
      - mhb 13y ago
        Orthodontia, laser eye surgery, boxed chocolates.
        nknighthb 13y ago
        "Shopping around" among dentists is virtually impossible. I can have only the most superficial and largely useless opinion of a dentist until I actually allow them in my mouth, at which point the deal is done. This is not a "healthy market" comparable to anything we're talking about here. Ditto laser eye surgery and pretty much anything else remotely medical in nature. Chocolate is not a healthy market either: http://ideas.time.com/2013/11/01/why-so-little-candy-variety-blame-the-chocolate-oligopoly/ http://ideas.time.com/2013/11/01/why-so-little-candy-variety...
        mhb 13y ago
        Orthodontists - not dentists. Boxed chocolate - not candy bars. Orthodontia and laser eye surgery are examples of the types of healthy markets that flourish in the absence of over-regulation. You also seem to be conflating the health of markets and some idiosyncratic issues of your own regarding discovering competent suppliers.
        nknighthb 13y ago
        > Orthodontists - not dentists. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/orthodontist http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/orthodontist or·tho·don·tics a branch of dentistry that deals with helping teeth to grow straight If we're not even going to argue about the same thing, I'm done here.
      - pessimizer 13y ago
        Screwdrivers, silverware, coffeemakers... (can you tell I'm looking around the room?) Whenever there are no individual participants large enough or enough participants colluding to cause regulatory capture. The US isn't interested in healthy markets anymore.
    - dllthomas 13y ago
      "That's the worst possible market" Second worst.
- zem 13y ago
  i tried that for a good long while; it was a great phone when i got it, and even after it started bothering me that the touchscreen was less than responsive, i enjoyed the OS enough that i stuck to it. however, there were two major bugs that it was clear would never be fixed after nokia EOLed it: * sometimes you'd get a phone call, but the phone app would not swap in, and by the time it did the call had dropped * the gps started taking anywhere from 30 minutes to never to get a lock the gps bug finally made me say "okay, i can't deal with this any more" and get an android.
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    GPS went completely dead for me probably two years ago. Huge bummer. Happened at the same time I started to have motorscooter problems (primary mode of transportation) and until I fix those, it's not critical. Thinking about getting another from ebay, but I don't know how to make sure I don't get one of the Hong Kong forgeries (burnt by that once before.) >* sometimes you'd get a phone call, but the phone app would not swap in, and by the time it did the call had dropped This has always been due to overmultitasking for me. I keep my processlist pretty lean and don't install a lot of daemons - and I haven't missed a call due to that for a few years now.
    - zem 13y ago
      i rely on my gps a lot even when just walking around the city (i get lost easily), so not having it was really a deal-breaker.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 13y ago
  Don't give up on android yet, it's just a dumb linux and despite vendor plots you can make it into dumb android like this guy did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF_-jQc53jw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF_-jQc53jw Cyanogen mod is going in the "smart" direction, but a mod could go in the other direction too. Slides for hellaphone here http://www.defcon.org/images/defcon-20/dc-20-presentations/Floren/DEFCON-20-Floren-Hellaphone.pdf http://www.defcon.org/images/defcon-20/dc-20-presentations/F... Edit: Add slides link
  - kfurz 13y ago
- Zigurd 13y ago
  Jolla is shipping, and Sailfish just went 1.0. You may need a friend in Europe to take delivery and ship it to you.
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    I heard that Jolla isn't compatible with US broadband, and it turned out not to be as open as I need. They've promised that their next phones will move more in that direction, though. One of my hopes is that Jolla will come through, and my other is that Maemo might be successfully rebased onto mainline Debian rather than crazy, un-upgradable Debian.
    - Zigurd 13y ago
      Jolla has UX components that are not open, but overall it should be more open than Meego/Maemo. Jolla is supposedly downstream of Mer. There's probably not enough that runs both Sailfish and Mer to work out exactly what you get with each one and how closely related they are, or whether Mer will function better or worse than AOSP as a related open project.
sarjonilla 13y ago
Although I do agree that disconnecting with 'dumbphones' mitigate your risk of easy distractions, I do not agree, however that the 'dumbphone' user is in fact better off with any advantage over a smartphone user. One can easily compare the personal computer to the mega computers we used to have that used to take up a whole room. If there was a consensus to retreat and not embrace new technology then we may be still in a day without personal computers. Innovation would have stagnated and seized to evolve. Whether or not this individual decides to ever embrace a smartphone he may find himself forced to eventually embrace the smartphone as 'dumbphones' begin to be obsolete just as fixed car phones or beepers have become.
- vezzy-fnord 13y ago
  I don't think most people stick with "dumbphones" out of ideological primitivism, but rather out of disillusionment with the current choices that are available.
eschnou 13y ago
A major advantage of dumphones over smartphones is battery life. Hence why I'm using combination of a dumbphone (that I must charge weekly) and a 7'' wifi tablet. This gives me best of both world and also makes it easier to 'disconnect' from the twitter addiction while staying reachable for emergencies.
tibbon 13y ago
I've had a friend do this. He had all the smart phones from Palm ones up through the iPhone and then just decided no more. He's got a basic flip phone that's cheap and the battery lasts forever. Features include talking, sms and a calculator. He's more than able to afford any phone out there, but just doesn't like the constant connection. He does own an iPod Touch that he uses on occasion with wifi, but mostly keeps it in his bag.
- angersock 13y ago
  Things I like about dumbphones: + No email--no, fuck you, you can't bug me during dinner because of something that just occurred to you. + No touchscreen--I can text without looking at my phone because I can feel the buttons. + It actually works as a phone, comfortably. + Battery lasts many days without issue. + I don't have to worry about it running arbitrary programs or getting viruses. + My old Nokia candybar was basically indestructible and waterproof. Even if it broke, replacing it was dirt cheap. Do one thing and do it well.
  - sillysaurus3 13y ago
    FYI your text is cut off: http://imgur.com/hyhwJLr http://imgur.com/hyhwJLr (Mobile users get it even worse.)
    - jmduke 13y ago
      If you weren't aware, you can scroll left-right on the <pre> tags.
      - sukuriant 13y ago
        Indeed you can; but it's a generally unpleasant experience. The original poster might not have noticed this; and it was a nice help to show them that it couldn't be seen. In the future they may take that into consideration when posting information with the <pre> tag :)
gtirloni 13y ago
One has to ask if this 'disconnection' is not compensated elsewhere (by getting distracted with the same things in other places, like laptops, and/or watching more TV, etc). The important thing is what you are doing with the newly discovered free time.
grahamburger 13y ago
What I want is a waterproof dumbphone with good wifi tethering LTE wifi tethering. Maybe even in a wearable form factor.
- XaspR8d 13y ago
  That sounds like an excellent class of hypothetical devices. Sadly a niche market at the moment though.
willvarfar 13y ago
If a back-to-basics backlash takes off, will it worry Google, Apple and other social miners?
- Gobitron 13y ago
  It won't. We have many decades of evidence that 'back-to-basics' will never be more than a niche movement. The world is very large, and Google, Apple and co, are much more vested in the folks coming 'up' (3rd world developing) than in the tiny minority of people who can even afford to think about back to basics.
- mtrn 13y ago
  They fraction of people going back might be just tiny, probably almost unnoticeable for entities like Apple or Google.
carlob 13y ago
After owning an iPhone and an Android I've recently downgraded to a dumbphone and I can't recommend more. I think at some point we'll look at smartphones the way we look at tobacco: a hard to quit, annoying habit…
- JTon 13y ago
  > I think at some point we'll look at smartphones the way we look at tobacco: a hard to quit, annoying habit… Can't say I see that happening. As many users already mentioned smartphones add great value to people's day to day.
  - carlob 13y ago
    Cigarettes are pretty good too, as a matter of fact there are more things that I miss from my tobacco days than from my smartphone days. I was obviously exaggerating, still I think a better objection to myself would be that smartphones are not as bad for your health.
  - lelandbatey 13y ago
    Indeed, I feel like I'm one of the few people that uses my phone almost entirely as a tool. I don't use any social network for entertainment (only for messaging), and though I do use it browse the web, my use there is largely negligible. However, I do get a HUGE amount of use out of my phone as a tool. I handle email, keep notes, use the camera for notes, manage files using Dropbox, and listen to music/podcasts (which help me be productive). I don't feel like phones are a bad thing.
weland 13y ago
I'm one of those people. I don't have a smartphone and don't want one. My phone is the cheapest piece of shit Nokia I could find. The online shop I buy computer stuff from had it on sale. I paid something like 15 EUR for it; completely unlocked, no carrier contract and the like, and got a couple of spare batteries for it. For the lack of a better word, it's perfect. It can use it to talk to people and send SMS messages, which is precisely what I need a phone for. E-mail and Facebook happens on my workstation (or on my laptop if I'm away); I am a programmer though, which means that at least one computer is bound to be on in my home at any given moment. Work e-mail happens only on my work computer, and anything work related happens during work hours. I'm paid to worry about work for exactly eight hours of day, after those eight hours are gone they can stick it. I also get a good week of battery life (to the point that I actually end up frantically searching for the damned charger because I misplace it). No updates break my phone, because there aren't any. I can also write an SMS without developing arthritis. The only thing I'd upgrade it to is a dumbphone with QWERTY keyboard. I've had it for about two years. Prior to that I was using a Nokia 1100 whose charger broke at a time when they weren't so easily available outside E-Bay and the like and I decided it's really not worth it. The small SMS limit was also bugging me (I had room for 50 messages or so and I'd regularly forget to clear them up). As for the "always connected" part, I really think part of it self-inflicted. I've had e-mail and IM clients with sound alerts, on broadband (or at least permanent) Internet connections for far longer than smartphones have been around. If I hear the e-mail chime and don't feel like checking my e-mail, I don't check it. I know the poor guy at the other end of the line can't see I'm reading and therefore can't answer his e-mail, but hey, it's the risk of remote communication. Facebook chat alert while I'm in the shower? I finish showering, then check it. This isn't really that a big deal. My friends know that if something is urgent, they can reach me on the phone at any hour of day or night. I know "society is offended" nowadays if you don't answer their IMs immediately, but I'm really not friends with all society, only with a handful of people (which is why my Facebook friend list also has, well, a handful of people!)
Cyph0n 13y ago
The way I see it is that there is a clear overlap of functionality between phones and tablets. I'm of the opinion that owning a tablet, such as a Nexus 7, makes many of your smartphone's functions redundant. So why have both smart devices? Why not have one device that does the bulk of the work while the other does the few functions that are unique to it as a device? To clarify, I haven't yet completely made the switch to a "dumbphone", but I'm getting there I think. I currently own the absolutely phenomenal, yet to-the-point, Nokia Lumia 520. Next step is something much more rudimentary.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  The reason they have so much overlapping functionality is because they are built with the same general-purpose hardware & operating system. That saves money. The reason both exist is because a big screen is great but it doesn't fit in your pocket (and it looks dumb when you hold it to your ear)
superuser2 13y ago
My quality of life would decrease significantly without Google Maps. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. are distracting fluff, but navigation is the killer app. I live in Chicago. Google Maps knows when the bus is coming, and which buses to take to get somewhere quickly. I don't have to plan very far ahead or keep to a strict schedule to make certain trains, since I know I can just pull out my phone and figure out a reasonable way to get home when it's time. As a student from another city, I have only enough understanding of the geography to read Google Maps critically - for the details, it's indispensable. Just uninstalling Facebook might be a nice middle route though.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  Chicago is easy. It's laid out on a grid with a very few diagonal arteries. Texting CTABUS XXXX to 41411(where XXXX is the stop number) tells you when the next bus is coming. There's only a couple of trains, and they shouldn't be very hard to get a handle on. All of this is easy for me to say (having been born in Chicago), but there's really not a lot to memorize. It's no New York. Edit: Here's a tip; memorize the major East-West boulevards on the North side (their order, if not their number.) The city is Cartesian, and that helps a lot with the conversion.
  - superuser2 13y ago
    Yeah, but I don't have bus stop locations memorized (except around campus), and the most efficient route depends on exactly when you're traveling. Having Google figure this out for me is really convenient.
- Nicholas_C 13y ago
  >Google Maps knows when the bus is coming, and which buses to take to get somewhere quickly. I recently visited SF and mostly used public transportation to get around. Google Maps was awesome.
- yeahboats 13y ago
  I have a nokia 301 that I bought for the smaller form factor, good battery life and some international use, and found that I used it a lot more for many of the reasons listed in the article. If I need to, I can still check my email/the weather/bus times, but every now and then I find myself switching back to my smartphone for the same reasons you list. Not having maps is extremely limiting. Sure, if I'm going a few places I can check google maps beforehand, plan out a route, and get to my destination. The flexibility to deviate from that is completely lost, and why I have to alternate between the two phones.
WalterBright 13y ago
I have a dumbphone, too, and surprisingly (or not so surprisingly) quite a few of my programmer friends also carry a dumbphone. Besides the advantages others listed, I simply like the smaller size of it. It fits in my pocket without being annoying. I also wear a wristwatch. Gosh, I'm old!
- iLoch 13y ago
  I never understood why people say "I don't need a watch, I have a phone in my pocket!" You know why watches were invented, right? Personally I've been thinking about getting a pager.
  - WalterBright 13y ago
    Yeah, I don't get it either. With a watch, I can read the time in 1/10 of a second, I don't have to dig it out of my pocket and turn it on, I can surreptitiously check the time, I can read it without my glasses on, I can read it out of the corner of my eye, it doesn't bounce around annoyingly in my pocket when I jog, it lasts a year on a charge, it works on an airplane, I can read it when my hands are full, I can check the time without taking my hands off the steering wheel, it works in the rain, etc. The only thing I don't like about a watch is I have to remember to take it off when working with rotating machinery.
simias 13y ago
I use a "dumbphone", although for me it's not a political or psychological thing, I just hardly ever used the smart functionalities of my android smartphone back when I had one. The only feature I sometimes miss is GPS localisation and google maps. On the other hand a smartphone is expensive, you always risk breaking it/getting it stolen. Nobody will bother stealing my 20euros Samsung and if I get it gets destroyed I'll just buy a couple more. Oh and as TFA mentions the battery lasts for like 10 days of normal use. The irony is that my job involves porting Android to embedded devices.
- gerbal 13y ago
  I would be in the same boat, but I have found that a Moto G with a prepaid SIM is a good middle point. Just cheap enough phone I can afford to have it stolen, and still with the Smartphone features that make me want and need a smartphone. (Navigation and messaging).
  - simias 13y ago
    Yeah, I haven't looked into cheap smartphones (I bought my current dumbphone maybe two years ago and things move quickly). But of course at time goes buy the low end phones get more and more featureful. That being said I doubt the Moto G has 10 days battery life and is as solid as my current brick phone. Still, it's a good recommendation, I'll look into it when my current phone stops working.
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      It absolutely does not have 10 day battery, but it does have one of the best battery lives of the crop. If mostly left asleep, it could last several days for sure. I do grimace more when I drop it onto a stone floor, but it has already survived that once.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    This is exactly what I have wound up doing. A quality dumbphone is still like $80 (last one I had was a Nokia C2), so the Moto G isn't wildly more. In my case, I was mostly after navigation and good calendar sync, plus I was getting tired of T9 for countless texts.
vezzy-fnord 13y ago
My last smartphone was an N900. If I'm going to buy a portable computer, well... I'd actually like some modicum of control over that computer out of the box. However my primary telecommunications device is a cheap flip phone.
- voltagex_ 13y ago
  I swear there needs to be a recovery/assistance group for former N900 users. I haven't been able to find a device to replace it yet and yes I know about the Neo900.
mavhc 13y ago
I got rid of my smartphone, that cost me $5/year to run, now I just carry a radio, mp3 player, book of maps, gps receiver, flashlight, barometer, alarm clock, diary, address book, newspaper, tv remote, and camera. Much less distracting
- qwerty_asdf 13y ago
  I carry a wallet, keys, and sometimes a phone, but not always. Not usually. Most of the time I just, you know, use land lines at the places where I'm at. If for some desperate reason, there's something that prevents me from tolerating a ~30 drive without in-situ communication, I mull over the idea of carrying a phone, and in the minutes it takes me to arrive at a decision, I usually just call the person I need to speak to, and square away the details on the spot. Yeah, people have to try three or four numbers to get a hold of me sometimes, but like, that's their problem.
  - photojosh 13y ago
    Can't wait until I can get rid of the wallet and keys too. Almost there... :)
    - philhippus 13y ago
      At least the wallet and keys offer some redundancy should you lose/break your phone.
    - yaeger 13y ago
      Having a single point of failure? I dunno. I already have mini hear attacks if I misplaced my phone because of all the data on it. My mails, my password manager etc. I really don't know if I would add my keys and my money to this. If lost, you literally are left with nothing.
  - calbear81 13y ago
    My daily mantra is: Wallet, Keys, Cellphone, Check.
bmj 13y ago
I had a dumb phone for a very long time, but after trying to navigate a cross-country road trip with a flip phone, I succumbed and upgraded to an iPhone. I can kinda be persuaded by the argument that we give up some of the adventure of traveling when we have the full details of the road before us, but I am more persuaded by having a gluten-free family who will need to eat at some point in the next hours and dammit, where is next Chipotle? It is also interesting to me that many of the folks in the article admit it's not a problem with smartphones, but rather their own shortcomings--they can't not be distracted.
robocaptain 13y ago
How long until "I only have a landline" becomes the ultimate hipster creedo?
whyme 13y ago
I turned the data plan off on my smartphone about 1 month after I bought my first tablet. What sucks is finding a phone, in today's market, having a decent screen plus keyboard for texting. It's looking like Im going to have to buy a blackberry Q10, even though, really, I'm overpaying for my actual needs. Anyone know of other more affordable options out there that don't make me look like I'm on the A-TEAM? Is it possible there's actually a really big opportunity for phone makers that's being missed here?
- deft 13y ago
  No clue if it's even available yet, but asha has a hardware keyboard and is fairly cheap. The Q10 is great though and personally I'd recommend it if you mainly use your phone for typing.
gphilip 13y ago
One distinct advantage that smartphones have over simple phones is the ability to make unlimited, essentially free [1] phone calls and messages to people who may not be in the same region as you are. Think Viber. It takes just one significant person in your life, who lives outside your range of unlimited-call phone plans, for this to be a serious argument in favour of using a smartphone. [1] At the cost of a data plan which also takes care of internet needs. (Edit: Grammar)
jonathansizz 13y ago
Interesting. This month I got my first ever smartphone, and only because I found out about Republic Wireless and their $10/month plan with unlimited talk/text everywhere, but data on wifi only, using the awesome Moto X. So now I can go for a walk/bike ride/drive and be off the grid for an hour or two, but I'm never far from a wifi network if I need it. I also save a lot of money each month. To me, this is the best of both worlds.
- ams6110 13y ago
  Wow, I had heard of Republic Wireless but never really checked them out. I'm also a long-time "dumbphone" holdout but my Verizon Samsung candy-bar has about had it. Just recently its earpiece speaker failed so now I can only answer voice calls in speakerphone mode, which is often awkward. And I have recently been in a few situations where maps or navigation would have been a great convenience. Republic's upcoming Moto G (April availability) looks ideal for me as a basic smartphone.
ctdonath 13y ago
There's a need for an iPhone Nano (and like competitors). Most dumbphones sold now seem designed to urge owners toward smartphones. They're thick (an inch?!), the UX is stupid (staring at Verizon), syncing with anything is a hassle, and include other features as bullet points but barely useable. They should be very thin (less than an iPhone 5), small as practical for holding, elegant attention-to-detail calling nuances, auto-sync with other devices where appropriate, and anything else it does should be limited and excellent. Voice dialing should be of high quality/accuracy. When on a call, should still show the time. There's a host of other nitpicky things that most phones suck at but are overlooked as the norm and no viable alternatives. If I'm carrying around a tablet, why bother carrying a phone which is nothing more than the same thing shrunk? I'd rather a phone which is an excellent phone, and is aware of & connected with the other devices I'm around much of the day.
- carlob 13y ago
  The Nokia 515 is pretty good design-wise. The only problem is that it has some support for email (even Exchange).
- maxerickson 13y ago
  Basically all the smart watch features in a candy bar phone.
T-hawk 13y ago
Dumbphone aficionado here too. I know full damn well I'd be a smartphone zombie glued to the thing constantly if I had one. I do have an iPad which serves as a great middle ground, portable nearly full featured computing when I need it, but it's not quite so temptingly convenient to pull out and distract myself in the middle of a conversation or restaurant. (Actually my phone is a fairly well provisioned feature phone, an AT&T Z431 with a browser and email and GPS and camera, but I don't have a data plan to use any of it. All I do is voice calls and text on AT&T's cheapo prepaid plan.)
kh_hk 13y ago
The definitive phone, a Nokia 1280 [1], featuring - Phone calls - SMS - FM Radio - Flashlight - Snake - 528h standby / 8h talking - Casual apps: calculator, calendar, countdown, converter, ... - SPEAKING CLOCK - Can be used as a ball to play catch sports My only cons are having just one alarm and having to little space for sms. Of course, it would be amazing being able to develop for it. There's absolutely a market for these phones outside of developing countries. [1]: http://www.nokia.com/in-en/phones/phone/nokia-1280/specifications/ http://www.nokia.com/in-en/phones/phone/nokia-1280/specifica...
- andyidsinga 13y ago
  speaking clock for--the--win
- bane 13y ago
  Apparently it even has a GPS?
  - kh_hk 13y ago
    I thought the same when entered the website, but note that features not filled in are unavailable (see Radio FM)
- llllllllllll 13y ago
  I have one too. It fell out of my pocket while biking last week, and then got run over by a Lexus SUV. Popped the battery back in and it was good as new. The flashlight is handy too, major upgrade from my last dumb phone.
- aaren 13y ago
  Charge by usb would be nice. I lost my nokia 1100 after 7 years of use (including dropping in a pond) and moved on to a spare samsung I had. If nokia came out with something with >500h of standby and charge by usb, I'd immediately give them an entire £10. edit: also, I like the lack of SMS space - it decreases my reliance on the device. I write down the important stuff and purge the rest monthly. SMS is a rubbish format for keeping my brain in.
0xdeadbeefbabe 13y ago
Dumbphone ought to be an adroid mod. I'd work on it.
shearnie 13y ago
I wonder how many people who have "downgraded" phones do so, in all honesty, for the shock value for fashion's sake just for the attention. Often they are the arty type who try to stand out from the crowd even though they have a nicely intellectual justification "I'm get too distracted, I lose out on quality of life". The cynic in me thinks they just want to be different.
- ciquar 13y ago
  Ha! OH, oh you're serious. Don't worry, the reason I use a dumbphone isn't so that I can be judgmental of you.
- chrismonsanto 13y ago
  I have never owned a smartphone, and I will hold out as long as I can. It is not a fashion statement, I do not care what others think about me. The nature of my work requires a lot of uninterrupted thinking, and I have a very addictive personality. If anything, it would be nice to own a smartphone so my friends and colleagues will stop acting weird about it.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- llllllllllll 13y ago
  There's a ton of legit reasons to not have a smartphone. Most of the "arty" types you see probably just can't afford one. As someone who over the years has lost their phone a couple times and dropped it many more times, no way am I going to shell out hundreds of dollars for a new one every time that happens. I also don't own a smartphone because I already spend enough time at my computer, and doing all the same things on a tiny screen with no mouse/keyboard/etc. would feel like a massively downgraded experience. For me, the only appealing features of a smart phone are tethering and GPS. I'm fine without them though. I moved to a new city ~6 months ago, and I already know my way around much better than most (especially useful because most of the city is not well documented on Google Maps / OpenStreetMap). Probably would not be the case if I had GPS everywhere.
davidgerard 13y ago
My phone is a £25/mo music player and book reader. I have NEVER read so many books as when I finally got a smartphone. Occasionally I switch the radio on and see if I have any messages or voicemail. It also has every variant of Angry Birds. Bad piggies to kill, you understand.
davidgerard 13y ago
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-technology/nokia-with-broken-screen-is-best-phone-of-all-time-2013040464681 http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-technology/nokia-... AFTER 40 years of mobile telephones, a Nokia with a broken screen has been declared the greatest ever. Experts described the battered 2003 phone as ‘not taking any shit’, and ‘the only phone you’ve ever wanted to have a pint with’. Telecoms analyst Martin Bishop said: “It’s got buttons, a speaker, the game ‘Snake’ plus you can drive a Panzer tank over the fucker and it still works.
wyclif 13y ago
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the Nokia 515. Good design, and 33 days maximum of battery standby. http://www.nokia.com/global/products/phone/515/ http://www.nokia.com/global/products/phone/515/
bobbles 13y ago
I disabled all notifications on my phone that are not SMS / phone calls. IMO it makes it a much more enjoyable experience and I never feel like im tied to my phone.
vikp 13y ago
I wish that I could switch back to a "dumbphone", but as a web and mobile developer, it would be infinitely harder to effectively make tools targeting the smartphone audience if I were not a part of it. So while I hate the productivity loss, I think the insight gain offsets it.
- ciquar 13y ago
  I'm in the same boat. Though, I've held off on personally using a smartphone, and probably to my own detriment like you suggest. I keep tablets and smartphones around my desk but never in my pocket. Work stays at work. I probably don't have that competitive edge, but I'm not freelancing either so I'm not too concerned.
drdeadringer 13y ago
I describe mine as a "Captain Kirk phone". Huh? I whip it out, flip it open, and before I can ask Scotty to beam me up -- Ooohh!
andyidsinga 13y ago
without reading the article .. I'm going to guess that some of these young adults are headed out to portland to retire dB{> ( ...for the downvote-no-bad-humor-allowed-HNers - I can take it :) ) [ edit: for the downvoters - no, I can't really take it - stop - for the love of my very small amount of karma ]
logn 13y ago
I use a Nokia dumbphone. 30 days of battery life. Turns on in 2 seconds. Costs $.05/min $.02/text. I also have a pager. Because of the frequency spectrum it's on, it almost always has connection.
- sp332 13y ago
  I used a Nokia Lumia 900 for about a year and loved it. Technically a smartphone, but I got over a week of use out of a single charge! You might think the hardware is too slow for a smartphone OS, but this was the flagship WP7 phone - no lag or stutter. It also boots fast if you prefer to keep it off. Note that AT&T will not allow you to activate this phone without a data plan. Just use a different provider.
- bertil 13y ago
  Serious question, about the practicality of using a technology most people forgot still work: Do your friends know how to reach your pager?
  - logn 13y ago
    Not sure. Mostly just used by my clients who are normally older.
- wyclif 13y ago
  Is it the Nokia 515?
will_lam 13y ago
I toy with the idea of purchasing a dumbphone at least once a month.
mratzloff 13y ago
It just takes willpower, guys. Turn off the parts that annoy you and don't check your phone every few minutes. Bring a book. Done.
mzr 13y ago
I rarely check my phone. I would like a tough phone to carry for emergencies while hiking. I couldn't completely switch because there is no way I am typing out a text with a phone keypad. That is the main reason I resisted getting a cell phone in the first place.
elwell 13y ago
Dumbphones are too distracting; pen and paper is superior.
debt 13y ago
I use to sport the Motofone F3. It was Motorola's answer to Nokia's domination of the feature phone market. The phone was amazing. It used e-ink for the display, super lower power, and texting completely sucked on it, but it had a really crisp design. http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/wireless/detail-page/motofone-f3.jpg http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/wireless/detail-page/mo...
- rsync 13y ago
  Motofone F3 is my current phone. I've been using it for 2.5 years now. It does nothing but make calls. No other wireless signals (no bluetooth, no wifi, no GPS). About as small of an attack surface as a GSM device can have, I think.
protomyth 13y ago
I wonder what the percentage is young adults who are on pay-as-you-go plans? Smart phones without a contract are not cheap.
- long 13y ago
  I'm on T-mobile's $30 per month prepaid plan. You only get 100 minutes but you also get unlimited talk, text, and data at 4G speeds up to 5 gigs. It's... okay. The reception can be truly appalling around Palo Alto. I used to have a dumbphone and the 10 cents per minute plan but it's hard to be a young adult without Google Maps.
Datsundere 13y ago
Still have my n95 from 2008. I don't understand when people say things like "I can't use a phone for more than a year. I need to upgrade!" really? my n95 has wifi, gps(although hard to get satellite), 5mp camera with flash. Symbian OS was the thing back in the day. People were using the camera's gyroscope to do a lot of cool stuff. I've seen videos of people controlling RC Cars with the gyroscope. I also have python installed in it. Granted it takes a long time to type, but I sometimes open up the interpreter and use the math library!
RALaBarge 13y ago
I find the best thing to do is just disable all notifications except text messages and calls on my phone.
debacle 13y ago
Best part of my dumbphone is that I can use twitter via SMS. That's actually the second best part. The best is that I can use it as a dial-up modem should the need ever arise. I'll probably never need it, but I still think it's awesome.
coliveira 13y ago
People who do this just don't know how to use technology. I have a smartphone, but don't spend any time using it for music, and very little for web browsing. In particular, I never synch my phone exactly to avoid any dependency on its contents. However, I am glad to have it because I know that in an emergency I can use maps, or even search information. And sometimes I use the camera to store temporary information. I think it is just a matter of avoiding that the technology become an addiction.
grecy 13y ago
Disconnecting means no phone. I currently have an old POS dumbphone, my first one since ~2006. I will get rid of it in the coming months. The convenience factor is not high enough to justify the cost, inconvenience of work calling whenever they want and the hit to my conventional skills. Going to a bar where everyone has their smartphone on the table and checks it every 3 minutes is painful.
kfcm 13y ago
Never have had a smartphone, and don't really want one. Can they be handy? Yes. Can they be useful business tools? Yes. In the end though, they are way more problematic: Standby and talk time battery life just isn't there. I don't want to be tracked not just by the phone company, but by Apple or Google, or any other company with an app on the thing. Security is another issue, especially if you're connecting to a VPN or other business resources. When I'm meeting with someone, they and the topic at hand are the subject of my focus. Smartphones destroy that focus. Smartphones are making us dumber, ruder and less considerate of others. I've watched twenty-something couples out on dinner dates never speak, but completely focused on their smartphones--even when eating. Someone you want to introduce yourself to? They're doing something on their smartphone. And there's nothing more irritating than speaking to someone about a project and they whip out their smartphone to text or update/check statuses. "It's ok, I can multitask." Yeah, right.
- MichaelMoser123 13y ago
  thanks to GSM they still know where you are (within several hundred feet); However you are right, no internet usage means that there is a smaller footprint, less information they can track.
- megablast 13y ago
  None of what you say has to be a problem, as long as you return home every night or have a car you can charge it up. Don't use a VPN. Turn your phone off or on silent when meeting with people. As far as tracking, should you be worried about Apple and Google, when the NSA has access to all of this.
austinz 13y ago
I like my smartphone, but I am a strange person who despises both talking on the phone and sending text messages. So the fact that my smartphone is so bad at doing both those things is, to me, a net positive.
brandonhsiao 13y ago
The reason I never bought a smartphone was that I don't want what is essentially a second computer always with me. That's more important to me than being able to search anything anytime. I'm a programmer who spends too much time on the computer. And the problem is not the time I spend but my mindset while I'm on it. I adopt an idleness and unwillingness to do anything off the computer. Worse, just having access to a computer makes me less likely to do other things. Should I read a new book, or go on the computer? If I have a computer next to me, it's simply more comfortable to go on it than to open a book. A smartphone would do to me what a computer already does. And for those who have the same problem as me, I'd argue that in this case the perspective of someone without a smartphone is less biased than that of someone who does.
- jonasvp 13y ago
  I feel the same way. With my smartphone in my pocket, I ended up whipping it out at every second of downtime to read... anything. Twitter, HN, news. That's not an indictment of smartphones but of myself. My wife does just fine with a smartphone, taking it out only to check her calendar. My solution: dumbphone in my pocket, Nexus 7 tablet in my bag. If I leave home without a bag, I won't need more than a phone. Otherwise, I have access to maps, mail, etc. but need to make a conscious decision to take it out - and look ridiculous when I walk around with it, which helps with the addictive part as well.
  - kaybe 13y ago
    I have an old smartphone, but I don't pay for internet. That brings my monthly bill to around 3€, and I have music, maps, photo and video, calender, ... no mail though, which is fine because I have told everyone to just call or text me if it's urgent enough.
- andrey-p 13y ago
  I pretty much came to the comments to write what brandonhsiao did (only at less detail). Two more things I can add though: - A smartphone is sort of a replacement to a computer but not a very good one at that. Typing's more fiddly, last I checked the SSH clients were annoying, you don't have that much freedom out of the box. - My £5 phone is nigh indestructible compared to your average smartphone. I can throw it about as much as I want to (though I've never felt the need to) and if it breaks, I'm not too fussed about it. Nobody in their right mind would want to steal it, but if they do, I don't have to worry about any of my data or accounts being exposed.
justinhj 13y ago
1876, London, England: The enthusiasm about the telephone wasn’t shared in the UK. William Preece, chief engineer of the General Post Office, declared that the new gizmo was merely “a substitute for servants”. “There are conditions in America which necessitate the use of such instruments more than here,” he told a House of Commons committee. “Here we have a super-abundance of messengers, errand boys and things of that kind. The absence of servants has compelled America to adopt communications systems for domestic purposes. Few have worked at the telephone much more than I have, I have one in my office but more for show. If I want to send a message – I employ a boy to take it.”
sixQuarks 13y ago
What % of eligible young adults actually forgo a smart phone? By eligible, I mean they can actually afford to buy one. I would say less than 5%. In any system, there are always outliers. This is just one of them.
unsignedint 13y ago
One thing I like about smartphone is a way better international language support. Those feature phones, at least anything sold in states wouldn't support anything beyond latin charsets, so to me, there is no going back...
Dewie 13y ago
Dumbphones are great for communication, right? You've got the phone and SMS, what else would you need? Well, what if people start getting annoyed at you because you use SMS instead of a chatting application? At some point I didn't have a data plan and I would have to call/SMS people, and they would keep urging me to get Whatsapp so I could message me in that app rather than the historically vastly overpriced SMS.
danans 13y ago
I've been pondering a phone that is just smart enough that it did: 1) 4G+Tethering 2) Contacts Sync 3) Maps/Nav 4) Email/SMS It could even have a small screen and physical keypad. I don't think any such phone exists, but it would be an interesting exercise to chop down android to those elements. If we're moving towards wearables, I imagine that many narrow use cases might move towards watches, etc, that seem like tethered devices anyways.
- honestcoyote 13y ago
  It's a little too old to do 4g, but the Nokia phones which ran s60 / Symbian would do what you want. Many of them had GPS and could run Google Maps, most had wifi, and all were solidly built with several days of standby time. Look for the Nokia e71, which was probably the best one and I still see it for sale here and there. If you want something made in the last couple of years, Nokia's Asha line of phones would probably work, though I don't know if Google ever made a version of maps to work with s40-based devices.
  - maxerickson 13y ago
    Nokia has pretty reasonable maps for their phones. You can even store regions on the device. (Here and Here.com are their current brand for it, I think the purchase of NAVTEQ was a big piece of their puzzle)
smprk 13y ago
What are the 4-5 top apps that you use on your smartphone and what % of time usage does that make? Currently the only apps I use (99% of the time) on my smartphone are - * Contacts, * Camera, * Email, * Maps. In that order. Confession: When smartphones had just hit the scene, I would stuff mine with new and shiny apps all night long, but in the long run, none of them stuck around.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  I think a big win from apps is that the system default software has to compete with something (and I guess it lowers the bar for trying new ideas). Cheap time waster games are also nice, and there seem to be niche apps where people that need them really benefit.
lastofus 13y ago
Up until a year a go, I had a "go phone" in my pocket. You know, the $20 Nokia based on tech from 7 years prior (aka. the drug dealer/burner phone/pay-as-you-go-POS). This was in my pocket for years as I tended to break phones every 18 months or so. It's amazing how everyone around me was constantly looking at their phone all the fucking time. From my technology-hipster POV, it was easy to see how people were missing out on, or just plain ignoring where used to be common social interactions. Then I got a bloody iPhone as an xmas gift. I've done my best to resist but... I don't think I could go back. I still have the common courtesy to not bust out the phone when other people are in the room, but I've lost count the times Google Maps has saved my ass, or having a distraction has saved me from hours of boredom. I think people forgot how to find balance between having the intorwebs in one's pocket, and not being an asshole.
Gracana 13y ago
I have a dumbphone because the plan required for a smartphone is enormously expensive. I just can't afford it. Hell, if I did have the money, I'd rather spend it on my motorcycle than on yet another way to view facebook.
rohanpai 13y ago
Does anyone know if it is possible to get a dumb phone that uses nano-sim? I want to try this out without switching permanently.
- tirant 13y ago
  You can just get a nano sim card to mini sim (2FF) adaptor.
Shivetya 13y ago
I am in the boat of having a smartphone only because it was required of me for work. I am required now to be in contact via email at all times. I certainly would never buy a smart phone if not simply because the contract costs for them are so obnoxious. Really, seventy five to a hundred a month, for a phone?!?!?! The features and abilities provided aren't worth a thousand a year to me, the loss of freedom certainly isn't.
mhd 13y ago
I'm getting a "Hipster PDA" deja vu.
servowire 13y ago
After 10 years of PDA/iPhone use (having destroyed, lost of worn out over 5 PDA's and 8 iPhones - 2G, 3G, several 3GS, 4 and 4S) I'm now on the lowest and smallest form of Android I could find. Just for calling, emergency telegram or maybe tethering for my laptop when really needed. Why? Because the constant checking my phone was starting to get counter-productive. Working and typing for a phone does not provide a wholly dedicated experience. At concerts, shows, events, etc. I started to take notice in the last years how everyone hunched into their phones instead of enjoying what was going on. We are simple beings and can only experience so much - having constant feeds of information erodes your mind. It takes years but this will be a hot topic in the coming years. When I lived at home 15 years ago my mother would taunt me "Get away from the computer some more" - Now I have to taunt her to put away her smartphone/facebook when I'm visiting her. The late majority of phone-users need to learn to control themselves. my 2 cents.
netcan 13y ago
It feels a bit off chopping and quoting a PG essay on his site but this bit stayed with me. I may have been thinking along those lines when I read it: "the world will get more addictive in the next 40 years than it did in the last 40… …as the world becomes more addictive, the two senses in which one can live a normal life will be driven ever further apart. One sense of "normal" is statistically normal… …someone trying to live well would seem eccentrically abstemious in most of the US. That phenomenon is only going to become more pronounced. You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly..." …People commonly use the word "procrastination" to describe what they do on the Internet. It seems to me too mild to describe what's happening as merely not-doing-work. We don't call it procrastination when someone gets drunk instead of working. … Sounds pretty eccentric, doesn't it? It always will when you're trying to solve problems where there are no customs yet to guide you. - http://paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://paulgraham.com/addiction.html This topic is very fertile for insight, personal or general. Most people would probably figure something out if they started writing about it. I think the crux is that surprisingly little of what we do is deliberate, and underexamined. Your choice of university or job might have been a grand crossroads choice that you made deliberately but many more choices are not. Impactfulness isn't really the trigger for deliberation in most cases, immediate commitment is. Choosing one book over another only impacts a few hours and a few dollars. A decade of book choices affects your personality, the things you think about and the way you talk. Many of our major maladies and deficiencies are related these undeliberate choices. I agree with PG on his insights about technology and "accelerating addictiveness" and the distillation of less addictive predecessors." Even more insightful is the idea that we can't rely on society and culture to guide us in the right direction concerning new things. That's probably where these dumbphone people are coming from. Sensing that there are cumulative bad choices related to carrying around a smartphone and making a deliberate choice to avoid them.
- vvvv 13y ago
  While I wouldn't downgrade to a dumbphone just yet, people keep poking fun at my old Blackberry. I do hate it a lot of the times when it crashes, when the GPS signal fails, when my thumb has to cover 500m distance on the annoying little square to read one webpage. However, it does (barely) what I would like my gadget to do: calls, emails, occasional map check and sending of a dropbox link. The experience is painful enough, that I don't treat it like a toy and hence feel no compulsion to baby it in my hand all of the time. Sometimes I feel like I miss out on all the apps and general development in the area, but that hasn't gotten acute enough yet for me to get a smartphone.
sanoli 13y ago
Is this going to become the new "I don't own a tv", where people think its hip and they feel the urge to tell others about it? Here's one of the few jokes I ever came up with: Q: What do you do if you want to find out whether somebody owns a tv? A: Nothing. If they don't have one, they'll tell you.
- nnnnni 13y ago
  I recently bought a TV and discovered that MTV is nothing but shows about kids having kids! What ever happened to the music? Matt Pinfield? Kurt Loder? Your joke is a good variation on "how can you tell if someone is vegan?"
  - sanoli 13y ago
    Hadn't thought about vegans, but you're right, they're prone to the same joke. However, I do know vegans who don't make a point of saying it, whereas all the no-tv people (ALL of them) had the urge to mention it, although this was more in the 90's, when TV was still what the internet is today, entertainment-wise.
gioele 13y ago
> That's because the 24-year-old carries a $50 flip phone — the Samsung Gusto 2. There's no touch screen or apps. No Web browsing capabilities. No collection of music to enjoy through earbuds. I'd like to point out that that phone [1] can browse the web (using Opera Mini Brew), can install apps and games (using the Samsung Brew store) and can be used to listen to music via a common 3.5mm jack (even though it only has 128MB of storage). It even has A-GPS. "Dumbphones" have not been dumb for at least 10 years. [1] http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=3614 http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=3614

122 points by wyclif 13y ago

I'm hopelessly hanging on to my N900; ancient OS on obsolete hardware. Neo900 gives me some chance of being able to carry this thing around for a couple of years longer. But: I will never own a personal (not for development) Android or iPhone. They're bad products dominated by vendors who hate their own customers, and plot against them in order to enable business strategies based on restricting choice. Right now, with this 'healthy' market of 2 vendors (for how many billion people?), dumbphone here I come...

hack_edu 13y ago
For what its worth, pretty much every world market out there is dominated by vendors that make bad products and rarely care. Usually just a few, even.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  Not the healthy ones. Healthy ones have a wide variety of choices, and the competition nipping at your heels keeps user-hating features out of the product. Right now the two smartphone operating systems are being made by two companies who are in court for colluding on hiring. That's the worst possible market, and as you would expect, it produces trash. One thing I'm looking forward to with my future dumbphones are how disposable they are if they turn out to be horrible.
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    Would you please name some of these "healthy" markets?
    - mhb 13y ago
      Orthodontia, laser eye surgery, boxed chocolates.
      - nknighthb 13y ago
        "Shopping around" among dentists is virtually impossible. I can have only the most superficial and largely useless opinion of a dentist until I actually allow them in my mouth, at which point the deal is done. This is not a "healthy market" comparable to anything we're talking about here. Ditto laser eye surgery and pretty much anything else remotely medical in nature. Chocolate is not a healthy market either: http://ideas.time.com/2013/11/01/why-so-little-candy-variety-blame-the-chocolate-oligopoly/ http://ideas.time.com/2013/11/01/why-so-little-candy-variety...
        mhb 13y ago
        Orthodontists - not dentists. Boxed chocolate - not candy bars. Orthodontia and laser eye surgery are examples of the types of healthy markets that flourish in the absence of over-regulation. You also seem to be conflating the health of markets and some idiosyncratic issues of your own regarding discovering competent suppliers.
        nknighthb 13y ago
        > Orthodontists - not dentists. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/orthodontist http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/orthodontist or·tho·don·tics a branch of dentistry that deals with helping teeth to grow straight If we're not even going to argue about the same thing, I'm done here.
    - pessimizer 13y ago
      Screwdrivers, silverware, coffeemakers... (can you tell I'm looking around the room?) Whenever there are no individual participants large enough or enough participants colluding to cause regulatory capture. The US isn't interested in healthy markets anymore.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    "That's the worst possible market" Second worst.
zem 13y ago
i tried that for a good long while; it was a great phone when i got it, and even after it started bothering me that the touchscreen was less than responsive, i enjoyed the OS enough that i stuck to it. however, there were two major bugs that it was clear would never be fixed after nokia EOLed it: * sometimes you'd get a phone call, but the phone app would not swap in, and by the time it did the call had dropped * the gps started taking anywhere from 30 minutes to never to get a lock the gps bug finally made me say "okay, i can't deal with this any more" and get an android.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  GPS went completely dead for me probably two years ago. Huge bummer. Happened at the same time I started to have motorscooter problems (primary mode of transportation) and until I fix those, it's not critical. Thinking about getting another from ebay, but I don't know how to make sure I don't get one of the Hong Kong forgeries (burnt by that once before.) >* sometimes you'd get a phone call, but the phone app would not swap in, and by the time it did the call had dropped This has always been due to overmultitasking for me. I keep my processlist pretty lean and don't install a lot of daemons - and I haven't missed a call due to that for a few years now.
  - zem 13y ago
    i rely on my gps a lot even when just walking around the city (i get lost easily), so not having it was really a deal-breaker.
0xdeadbeefbabe 13y ago
Don't give up on android yet, it's just a dumb linux and despite vendor plots you can make it into dumb android like this guy did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF_-jQc53jw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF_-jQc53jw Cyanogen mod is going in the "smart" direction, but a mod could go in the other direction too. Slides for hellaphone here http://www.defcon.org/images/defcon-20/dc-20-presentations/Floren/DEFCON-20-Floren-Hellaphone.pdf http://www.defcon.org/images/defcon-20/dc-20-presentations/F... Edit: Add slides link
- kfurz 13y ago
Zigurd 13y ago
Jolla is shipping, and Sailfish just went 1.0. You may need a friend in Europe to take delivery and ship it to you.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  I heard that Jolla isn't compatible with US broadband, and it turned out not to be as open as I need. They've promised that their next phones will move more in that direction, though. One of my hopes is that Jolla will come through, and my other is that Maemo might be successfully rebased onto mainline Debian rather than crazy, un-upgradable Debian.
  - Zigurd 13y ago
    Jolla has UX components that are not open, but overall it should be more open than Meego/Maemo. Jolla is supposedly downstream of Mer. There's probably not enough that runs both Sailfish and Mer to work out exactly what you get with each one and how closely related they are, or whether Mer will function better or worse than AOSP as a related open project.

sarjonilla 13y ago

Although I do agree that disconnecting with 'dumbphones' mitigate your risk of easy distractions, I do not agree, however that the 'dumbphone' user is in fact better off with any advantage over a smartphone user. One can easily compare the personal computer to the mega computers we used to have that used to take up a whole room. If there was a consensus to retreat and not embrace new technology then we may be still in a day without personal computers. Innovation would have stagnated and seized to evolve. Whether or not this individual decides to ever embrace a smartphone he may find himself forced to eventually embrace the smartphone as 'dumbphones' begin to be obsolete just as fixed car phones or beepers have become.

vezzy-fnord 13y ago
I don't think most people stick with "dumbphones" out of ideological primitivism, but rather out of disillusionment with the current choices that are available.

eschnou 13y ago

A major advantage of dumphones over smartphones is battery life. Hence why I'm using combination of a dumbphone (that I must charge weekly) and a 7'' wifi tablet. This gives me best of both world and also makes it easier to 'disconnect' from the twitter addiction while staying reachable for emergencies.

tibbon 13y ago

I've had a friend do this. He had all the smart phones from Palm ones up through the iPhone and then just decided no more. He's got a basic flip phone that's cheap and the battery lasts forever. Features include talking, sms and a calculator. He's more than able to afford any phone out there, but just doesn't like the constant connection. He does own an iPod Touch that he uses on occasion with wifi, but mostly keeps it in his bag.

angersock 13y ago
Things I like about dumbphones: + No email--no, fuck you, you can't bug me during dinner because of something that just occurred to you. + No touchscreen--I can text without looking at my phone because I can feel the buttons. + It actually works as a phone, comfortably. + Battery lasts many days without issue. + I don't have to worry about it running arbitrary programs or getting viruses. + My old Nokia candybar was basically indestructible and waterproof. Even if it broke, replacing it was dirt cheap. Do one thing and do it well.
- sillysaurus3 13y ago
  FYI your text is cut off: http://imgur.com/hyhwJLr http://imgur.com/hyhwJLr (Mobile users get it even worse.)
  - jmduke 13y ago
    If you weren't aware, you can scroll left-right on the <pre> tags.
    - sukuriant 13y ago
      Indeed you can; but it's a generally unpleasant experience. The original poster might not have noticed this; and it was a nice help to show them that it couldn't be seen. In the future they may take that into consideration when posting information with the <pre> tag :)

gtirloni 13y ago

One has to ask if this 'disconnection' is not compensated elsewhere (by getting distracted with the same things in other places, like laptops, and/or watching more TV, etc). The important thing is what you are doing with the newly discovered free time.

grahamburger 13y ago

What I want is a waterproof dumbphone with good wifi tethering LTE wifi tethering. Maybe even in a wearable form factor.

XaspR8d 13y ago
That sounds like an excellent class of hypothetical devices. Sadly a niche market at the moment though.

willvarfar 13y ago

If a back-to-basics backlash takes off, will it worry Google, Apple and other social miners?

Gobitron 13y ago
It won't. We have many decades of evidence that 'back-to-basics' will never be more than a niche movement. The world is very large, and Google, Apple and co, are much more vested in the folks coming 'up' (3rd world developing) than in the tiny minority of people who can even afford to think about back to basics.
mtrn 13y ago
They fraction of people going back might be just tiny, probably almost unnoticeable for entities like Apple or Google.

carlob 13y ago

After owning an iPhone and an Android I've recently downgraded to a dumbphone and I can't recommend more. I think at some point we'll look at smartphones the way we look at tobacco: a hard to quit, annoying habit…

JTon 13y ago
> I think at some point we'll look at smartphones the way we look at tobacco: a hard to quit, annoying habit… Can't say I see that happening. As many users already mentioned smartphones add great value to people's day to day.
- carlob 13y ago
  Cigarettes are pretty good too, as a matter of fact there are more things that I miss from my tobacco days than from my smartphone days. I was obviously exaggerating, still I think a better objection to myself would be that smartphones are not as bad for your health.
- lelandbatey 13y ago
  Indeed, I feel like I'm one of the few people that uses my phone almost entirely as a tool. I don't use any social network for entertainment (only for messaging), and though I do use it browse the web, my use there is largely negligible. However, I do get a HUGE amount of use out of my phone as a tool. I handle email, keep notes, use the camera for notes, manage files using Dropbox, and listen to music/podcasts (which help me be productive). I don't feel like phones are a bad thing.

weland 13y ago

I'm one of those people. I don't have a smartphone and don't want one. My phone is the cheapest piece of shit Nokia I could find. The online shop I buy computer stuff from had it on sale. I paid something like 15 EUR for it; completely unlocked, no carrier contract and the like, and got a couple of spare batteries for it. For the lack of a better word, it's perfect. It can use it to talk to people and send SMS messages, which is precisely what I need a phone for. E-mail and Facebook happens on my workstation (or on my laptop if I'm away); I am a programmer though, which means that at least one computer is bound to be on in my home at any given moment. Work e-mail happens only on my work computer, and anything work related happens during work hours. I'm paid to worry about work for exactly eight hours of day, after those eight hours are gone they can stick it. I also get a good week of battery life (to the point that I actually end up frantically searching for the damned charger because I misplace it). No updates break my phone, because there aren't any. I can also write an SMS without developing arthritis. The only thing I'd upgrade it to is a dumbphone with QWERTY keyboard. I've had it for about two years. Prior to that I was using a Nokia 1100 whose charger broke at a time when they weren't so easily available outside E-Bay and the like and I decided it's really not worth it. The small SMS limit was also bugging me (I had room for 50 messages or so and I'd regularly forget to clear them up). As for the "always connected" part, I really think part of it self-inflicted. I've had e-mail and IM clients with sound alerts, on broadband (or at least permanent) Internet connections for far longer than smartphones have been around. If I hear the e-mail chime and don't feel like checking my e-mail, I don't check it. I know the poor guy at the other end of the line can't see I'm reading and therefore can't answer his e-mail, but hey, it's the risk of remote communication. Facebook chat alert while I'm in the shower? I finish showering, then check it. This isn't really that a big deal. My friends know that if something is urgent, they can reach me on the phone at any hour of day or night. I know "society is offended" nowadays if you don't answer their IMs immediately, but I'm really not friends with all society, only with a handful of people (which is why my Facebook friend list also has, well, a handful of people!)

Cyph0n 13y ago

The way I see it is that there is a clear overlap of functionality between phones and tablets. I'm of the opinion that owning a tablet, such as a Nexus 7, makes many of your smartphone's functions redundant. So why have both smart devices? Why not have one device that does the bulk of the work while the other does the few functions that are unique to it as a device? To clarify, I haven't yet completely made the switch to a "dumbphone", but I'm getting there I think. I currently own the absolutely phenomenal, yet to-the-point, Nokia Lumia 520. Next step is something much more rudimentary.

sliverstorm 13y ago
The reason they have so much overlapping functionality is because they are built with the same general-purpose hardware & operating system. That saves money. The reason both exist is because a big screen is great but it doesn't fit in your pocket (and it looks dumb when you hold it to your ear)

superuser2 13y ago

My quality of life would decrease significantly without Google Maps. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. are distracting fluff, but navigation is the killer app. I live in Chicago. Google Maps knows when the bus is coming, and which buses to take to get somewhere quickly. I don't have to plan very far ahead or keep to a strict schedule to make certain trains, since I know I can just pull out my phone and figure out a reasonable way to get home when it's time. As a student from another city, I have only enough understanding of the geography to read Google Maps critically - for the details, it's indispensable. Just uninstalling Facebook might be a nice middle route though.

pessimizer 13y ago
Chicago is easy. It's laid out on a grid with a very few diagonal arteries. Texting CTABUS XXXX to 41411(where XXXX is the stop number) tells you when the next bus is coming. There's only a couple of trains, and they shouldn't be very hard to get a handle on. All of this is easy for me to say (having been born in Chicago), but there's really not a lot to memorize. It's no New York. Edit: Here's a tip; memorize the major East-West boulevards on the North side (their order, if not their number.) The city is Cartesian, and that helps a lot with the conversion.
- superuser2 13y ago
  Yeah, but I don't have bus stop locations memorized (except around campus), and the most efficient route depends on exactly when you're traveling. Having Google figure this out for me is really convenient.
Nicholas_C 13y ago
>Google Maps knows when the bus is coming, and which buses to take to get somewhere quickly. I recently visited SF and mostly used public transportation to get around. Google Maps was awesome.
yeahboats 13y ago
I have a nokia 301 that I bought for the smaller form factor, good battery life and some international use, and found that I used it a lot more for many of the reasons listed in the article. If I need to, I can still check my email/the weather/bus times, but every now and then I find myself switching back to my smartphone for the same reasons you list. Not having maps is extremely limiting. Sure, if I'm going a few places I can check google maps beforehand, plan out a route, and get to my destination. The flexibility to deviate from that is completely lost, and why I have to alternate between the two phones.

WalterBright 13y ago

I have a dumbphone, too, and surprisingly (or not so surprisingly) quite a few of my programmer friends also carry a dumbphone. Besides the advantages others listed, I simply like the smaller size of it. It fits in my pocket without being annoying. I also wear a wristwatch. Gosh, I'm old!

iLoch 13y ago
I never understood why people say "I don't need a watch, I have a phone in my pocket!" You know why watches were invented, right? Personally I've been thinking about getting a pager.
- WalterBright 13y ago
  Yeah, I don't get it either. With a watch, I can read the time in 1/10 of a second, I don't have to dig it out of my pocket and turn it on, I can surreptitiously check the time, I can read it without my glasses on, I can read it out of the corner of my eye, it doesn't bounce around annoyingly in my pocket when I jog, it lasts a year on a charge, it works on an airplane, I can read it when my hands are full, I can check the time without taking my hands off the steering wheel, it works in the rain, etc. The only thing I don't like about a watch is I have to remember to take it off when working with rotating machinery.

simias 13y ago

I use a "dumbphone", although for me it's not a political or psychological thing, I just hardly ever used the smart functionalities of my android smartphone back when I had one. The only feature I sometimes miss is GPS localisation and google maps. On the other hand a smartphone is expensive, you always risk breaking it/getting it stolen. Nobody will bother stealing my 20euros Samsung and if I get it gets destroyed I'll just buy a couple more. Oh and as TFA mentions the battery lasts for like 10 days of normal use. The irony is that my job involves porting Android to embedded devices.

gerbal 13y ago
I would be in the same boat, but I have found that a Moto G with a prepaid SIM is a good middle point. Just cheap enough phone I can afford to have it stolen, and still with the Smartphone features that make me want and need a smartphone. (Navigation and messaging).
- simias 13y ago
  Yeah, I haven't looked into cheap smartphones (I bought my current dumbphone maybe two years ago and things move quickly). But of course at time goes buy the low end phones get more and more featureful. That being said I doubt the Moto G has 10 days battery life and is as solid as my current brick phone. Still, it's a good recommendation, I'll look into it when my current phone stops working.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    It absolutely does not have 10 day battery, but it does have one of the best battery lives of the crop. If mostly left asleep, it could last several days for sure. I do grimace more when I drop it onto a stone floor, but it has already survived that once.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  This is exactly what I have wound up doing. A quality dumbphone is still like $80 (last one I had was a Nokia C2), so the Moto G isn't wildly more. In my case, I was mostly after navigation and good calendar sync, plus I was getting tired of T9 for countless texts.

vezzy-fnord 13y ago

My last smartphone was an N900. If I'm going to buy a portable computer, well... I'd actually like some modicum of control over that computer out of the box. However my primary telecommunications device is a cheap flip phone.

voltagex_ 13y ago
I swear there needs to be a recovery/assistance group for former N900 users. I haven't been able to find a device to replace it yet and yes I know about the Neo900.

mavhc 13y ago

I got rid of my smartphone, that cost me $5/year to run, now I just carry a radio, mp3 player, book of maps, gps receiver, flashlight, barometer, alarm clock, diary, address book, newspaper, tv remote, and camera. Much less distracting

qwerty_asdf 13y ago
I carry a wallet, keys, and sometimes a phone, but not always. Not usually. Most of the time I just, you know, use land lines at the places where I'm at. If for some desperate reason, there's something that prevents me from tolerating a ~30 drive without in-situ communication, I mull over the idea of carrying a phone, and in the minutes it takes me to arrive at a decision, I usually just call the person I need to speak to, and square away the details on the spot. Yeah, people have to try three or four numbers to get a hold of me sometimes, but like, that's their problem.
- photojosh 13y ago
  Can't wait until I can get rid of the wallet and keys too. Almost there... :)
  - philhippus 13y ago
    At least the wallet and keys offer some redundancy should you lose/break your phone.
  - yaeger 13y ago
    Having a single point of failure? I dunno. I already have mini hear attacks if I misplaced my phone because of all the data on it. My mails, my password manager etc. I really don't know if I would add my keys and my money to this. If lost, you literally are left with nothing.
- calbear81 13y ago
  My daily mantra is: Wallet, Keys, Cellphone, Check.

bmj 13y ago

I had a dumb phone for a very long time, but after trying to navigate a cross-country road trip with a flip phone, I succumbed and upgraded to an iPhone. I can kinda be persuaded by the argument that we give up some of the adventure of traveling when we have the full details of the road before us, but I am more persuaded by having a gluten-free family who will need to eat at some point in the next hours and dammit, where is next Chipotle? It is also interesting to me that many of the folks in the article admit it's not a problem with smartphones, but rather their own shortcomings--they can't not be distracted.

robocaptain 13y ago

How long until "I only have a landline" becomes the ultimate hipster creedo?

whyme 13y ago

I turned the data plan off on my smartphone about 1 month after I bought my first tablet. What sucks is finding a phone, in today's market, having a decent screen plus keyboard for texting. It's looking like Im going to have to buy a blackberry Q10, even though, really, I'm overpaying for my actual needs. Anyone know of other more affordable options out there that don't make me look like I'm on the A-TEAM? Is it possible there's actually a really big opportunity for phone makers that's being missed here?

deft 13y ago
No clue if it's even available yet, but asha has a hardware keyboard and is fairly cheap. The Q10 is great though and personally I'd recommend it if you mainly use your phone for typing.

gphilip 13y ago

One distinct advantage that smartphones have over simple phones is the ability to make unlimited, essentially free [1] phone calls and messages to people who may not be in the same region as you are. Think Viber. It takes just one significant person in your life, who lives outside your range of unlimited-call phone plans, for this to be a serious argument in favour of using a smartphone. [1] At the cost of a data plan which also takes care of internet needs. (Edit: Grammar)

jonathansizz 13y ago

Interesting. This month I got my first ever smartphone, and only because I found out about Republic Wireless and their $10/month plan with unlimited talk/text everywhere, but data on wifi only, using the awesome Moto X. So now I can go for a walk/bike ride/drive and be off the grid for an hour or two, but I'm never far from a wifi network if I need it. I also save a lot of money each month. To me, this is the best of both worlds.

ams6110 13y ago
Wow, I had heard of Republic Wireless but never really checked them out. I'm also a long-time "dumbphone" holdout but my Verizon Samsung candy-bar has about had it. Just recently its earpiece speaker failed so now I can only answer voice calls in speakerphone mode, which is often awkward. And I have recently been in a few situations where maps or navigation would have been a great convenience. Republic's upcoming Moto G (April availability) looks ideal for me as a basic smartphone.

ctdonath 13y ago

There's a need for an iPhone Nano (and like competitors). Most dumbphones sold now seem designed to urge owners toward smartphones. They're thick (an inch?!), the UX is stupid (staring at Verizon), syncing with anything is a hassle, and include other features as bullet points but barely useable. They should be very thin (less than an iPhone 5), small as practical for holding, elegant attention-to-detail calling nuances, auto-sync with other devices where appropriate, and anything else it does should be limited and excellent. Voice dialing should be of high quality/accuracy. When on a call, should still show the time. There's a host of other nitpicky things that most phones suck at but are overlooked as the norm and no viable alternatives. If I'm carrying around a tablet, why bother carrying a phone which is nothing more than the same thing shrunk? I'd rather a phone which is an excellent phone, and is aware of & connected with the other devices I'm around much of the day.

carlob 13y ago
The Nokia 515 is pretty good design-wise. The only problem is that it has some support for email (even Exchange).
maxerickson 13y ago
Basically all the smart watch features in a candy bar phone.

T-hawk 13y ago

Dumbphone aficionado here too. I know full damn well I'd be a smartphone zombie glued to the thing constantly if I had one. I do have an iPad which serves as a great middle ground, portable nearly full featured computing when I need it, but it's not quite so temptingly convenient to pull out and distract myself in the middle of a conversation or restaurant. (Actually my phone is a fairly well provisioned feature phone, an AT&T Z431 with a browser and email and GPS and camera, but I don't have a data plan to use any of it. All I do is voice calls and text on AT&T's cheapo prepaid plan.)

kh_hk 13y ago

The definitive phone, a Nokia 1280 [1], featuring - Phone calls - SMS - FM Radio - Flashlight - Snake - 528h standby / 8h talking - Casual apps: calculator, calendar, countdown, converter, ... - SPEAKING CLOCK - Can be used as a ball to play catch sports My only cons are having just one alarm and having to little space for sms. Of course, it would be amazing being able to develop for it. There's absolutely a market for these phones outside of developing countries. [1]: http://www.nokia.com/in-en/phones/phone/nokia-1280/specifications/ http://www.nokia.com/in-en/phones/phone/nokia-1280/specifica...

andyidsinga 13y ago
speaking clock for--the--win
bane 13y ago
Apparently it even has a GPS?
- kh_hk 13y ago
  I thought the same when entered the website, but note that features not filled in are unavailable (see Radio FM)
llllllllllll 13y ago
I have one too. It fell out of my pocket while biking last week, and then got run over by a Lexus SUV. Popped the battery back in and it was good as new. The flashlight is handy too, major upgrade from my last dumb phone.
aaren 13y ago
Charge by usb would be nice. I lost my nokia 1100 after 7 years of use (including dropping in a pond) and moved on to a spare samsung I had. If nokia came out with something with >500h of standby and charge by usb, I'd immediately give them an entire £10. edit: also, I like the lack of SMS space - it decreases my reliance on the device. I write down the important stuff and purge the rest monthly. SMS is a rubbish format for keeping my brain in.

0xdeadbeefbabe 13y ago

Dumbphone ought to be an adroid mod. I'd work on it.

shearnie 13y ago

I wonder how many people who have "downgraded" phones do so, in all honesty, for the shock value for fashion's sake just for the attention. Often they are the arty type who try to stand out from the crowd even though they have a nicely intellectual justification "I'm get too distracted, I lose out on quality of life". The cynic in me thinks they just want to be different.

ciquar 13y ago
Ha! OH, oh you're serious. Don't worry, the reason I use a dumbphone isn't so that I can be judgmental of you.
chrismonsanto 13y ago
I have never owned a smartphone, and I will hold out as long as I can. It is not a fashion statement, I do not care what others think about me. The nature of my work requires a lot of uninterrupted thinking, and I have a very addictive personality. If anything, it would be nice to own a smartphone so my friends and colleagues will stop acting weird about it.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
llllllllllll 13y ago
There's a ton of legit reasons to not have a smartphone. Most of the "arty" types you see probably just can't afford one. As someone who over the years has lost their phone a couple times and dropped it many more times, no way am I going to shell out hundreds of dollars for a new one every time that happens. I also don't own a smartphone because I already spend enough time at my computer, and doing all the same things on a tiny screen with no mouse/keyboard/etc. would feel like a massively downgraded experience. For me, the only appealing features of a smart phone are tethering and GPS. I'm fine without them though. I moved to a new city ~6 months ago, and I already know my way around much better than most (especially useful because most of the city is not well documented on Google Maps / OpenStreetMap). Probably would not be the case if I had GPS everywhere.

davidgerard 13y ago

My phone is a £25/mo music player and book reader. I have NEVER read so many books as when I finally got a smartphone. Occasionally I switch the radio on and see if I have any messages or voicemail. It also has every variant of Angry Birds. Bad piggies to kill, you understand.

davidgerard 13y ago

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-technology/nokia-with-broken-screen-is-best-phone-of-all-time-2013040464681 http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-technology/nokia-... AFTER 40 years of mobile telephones, a Nokia with a broken screen has been declared the greatest ever. Experts described the battered 2003 phone as ‘not taking any shit’, and ‘the only phone you’ve ever wanted to have a pint with’. Telecoms analyst Martin Bishop said: “It’s got buttons, a speaker, the game ‘Snake’ plus you can drive a Panzer tank over the fucker and it still works.

wyclif 13y ago

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the Nokia 515. Good design, and 33 days maximum of battery standby. http://www.nokia.com/global/products/phone/515/ http://www.nokia.com/global/products/phone/515/

bobbles 13y ago

I disabled all notifications on my phone that are not SMS / phone calls. IMO it makes it a much more enjoyable experience and I never feel like im tied to my phone.

vikp 13y ago

I wish that I could switch back to a "dumbphone", but as a web and mobile developer, it would be infinitely harder to effectively make tools targeting the smartphone audience if I were not a part of it. So while I hate the productivity loss, I think the insight gain offsets it.

ciquar 13y ago
I'm in the same boat. Though, I've held off on personally using a smartphone, and probably to my own detriment like you suggest. I keep tablets and smartphones around my desk but never in my pocket. Work stays at work. I probably don't have that competitive edge, but I'm not freelancing either so I'm not too concerned.

drdeadringer 13y ago

I describe mine as a "Captain Kirk phone". Huh? I whip it out, flip it open, and before I can ask Scotty to beam me up -- Ooohh!

andyidsinga 13y ago

without reading the article .. I'm going to guess that some of these young adults are headed out to portland to retire dB{> ( ...for the downvote-no-bad-humor-allowed-HNers - I can take it :) ) [ edit: for the downvoters - no, I can't really take it - stop - for the love of my very small amount of karma ]

logn 13y ago

I use a Nokia dumbphone. 30 days of battery life. Turns on in 2 seconds. Costs $.05/min $.02/text. I also have a pager. Because of the frequency spectrum it's on, it almost always has connection.

sp332 13y ago
I used a Nokia Lumia 900 for about a year and loved it. Technically a smartphone, but I got over a week of use out of a single charge! You might think the hardware is too slow for a smartphone OS, but this was the flagship WP7 phone - no lag or stutter. It also boots fast if you prefer to keep it off. Note that AT&T will not allow you to activate this phone without a data plan. Just use a different provider.
bertil 13y ago
Serious question, about the practicality of using a technology most people forgot still work: Do your friends know how to reach your pager?
- logn 13y ago
  Not sure. Mostly just used by my clients who are normally older.
wyclif 13y ago
Is it the Nokia 515?

will_lam 13y ago

I toy with the idea of purchasing a dumbphone at least once a month.

mratzloff 13y ago

It just takes willpower, guys. Turn off the parts that annoy you and don't check your phone every few minutes. Bring a book. Done.

mzr 13y ago

I rarely check my phone. I would like a tough phone to carry for emergencies while hiking. I couldn't completely switch because there is no way I am typing out a text with a phone keypad. That is the main reason I resisted getting a cell phone in the first place.

elwell 13y ago

Dumbphones are too distracting; pen and paper is superior.

debt 13y ago

I use to sport the Motofone F3. It was Motorola's answer to Nokia's domination of the feature phone market. The phone was amazing. It used e-ink for the display, super lower power, and texting completely sucked on it, but it had a really crisp design. http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/wireless/detail-page/motofone-f3.jpg http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/wireless/detail-page/mo...

rsync 13y ago
Motofone F3 is my current phone. I've been using it for 2.5 years now. It does nothing but make calls. No other wireless signals (no bluetooth, no wifi, no GPS). About as small of an attack surface as a GSM device can have, I think.

protomyth 13y ago

I wonder what the percentage is young adults who are on pay-as-you-go plans? Smart phones without a contract are not cheap.

long 13y ago
I'm on T-mobile's $30 per month prepaid plan. You only get 100 minutes but you also get unlimited talk, text, and data at 4G speeds up to 5 gigs. It's... okay. The reception can be truly appalling around Palo Alto. I used to have a dumbphone and the 10 cents per minute plan but it's hard to be a young adult without Google Maps.

Datsundere 13y ago

Still have my n95 from 2008. I don't understand when people say things like "I can't use a phone for more than a year. I need to upgrade!" really? my n95 has wifi, gps(although hard to get satellite), 5mp camera with flash. Symbian OS was the thing back in the day. People were using the camera's gyroscope to do a lot of cool stuff. I've seen videos of people controlling RC Cars with the gyroscope. I also have python installed in it. Granted it takes a long time to type, but I sometimes open up the interpreter and use the math library!

RALaBarge 13y ago

I find the best thing to do is just disable all notifications except text messages and calls on my phone.

debacle 13y ago

Best part of my dumbphone is that I can use twitter via SMS. That's actually the second best part. The best is that I can use it as a dial-up modem should the need ever arise. I'll probably never need it, but I still think it's awesome.

coliveira 13y ago

People who do this just don't know how to use technology. I have a smartphone, but don't spend any time using it for music, and very little for web browsing. In particular, I never synch my phone exactly to avoid any dependency on its contents. However, I am glad to have it because I know that in an emergency I can use maps, or even search information. And sometimes I use the camera to store temporary information. I think it is just a matter of avoiding that the technology become an addiction.

grecy 13y ago

Disconnecting means no phone. I currently have an old POS dumbphone, my first one since ~2006. I will get rid of it in the coming months. The convenience factor is not high enough to justify the cost, inconvenience of work calling whenever they want and the hit to my conventional skills. Going to a bar where everyone has their smartphone on the table and checks it every 3 minutes is painful.

kfcm 13y ago

Never have had a smartphone, and don't really want one. Can they be handy? Yes. Can they be useful business tools? Yes. In the end though, they are way more problematic: Standby and talk time battery life just isn't there. I don't want to be tracked not just by the phone company, but by Apple or Google, or any other company with an app on the thing. Security is another issue, especially if you're connecting to a VPN or other business resources. When I'm meeting with someone, they and the topic at hand are the subject of my focus. Smartphones destroy that focus. Smartphones are making us dumber, ruder and less considerate of others. I've watched twenty-something couples out on dinner dates never speak, but completely focused on their smartphones--even when eating. Someone you want to introduce yourself to? They're doing something on their smartphone. And there's nothing more irritating than speaking to someone about a project and they whip out their smartphone to text or update/check statuses. "It's ok, I can multitask." Yeah, right.

MichaelMoser123 13y ago
thanks to GSM they still know where you are (within several hundred feet); However you are right, no internet usage means that there is a smaller footprint, less information they can track.
megablast 13y ago
None of what you say has to be a problem, as long as you return home every night or have a car you can charge it up. Don't use a VPN. Turn your phone off or on silent when meeting with people. As far as tracking, should you be worried about Apple and Google, when the NSA has access to all of this.

austinz 13y ago

I like my smartphone, but I am a strange person who despises both talking on the phone and sending text messages. So the fact that my smartphone is so bad at doing both those things is, to me, a net positive.

brandonhsiao 13y ago

The reason I never bought a smartphone was that I don't want what is essentially a second computer always with me. That's more important to me than being able to search anything anytime. I'm a programmer who spends too much time on the computer. And the problem is not the time I spend but my mindset while I'm on it. I adopt an idleness and unwillingness to do anything off the computer. Worse, just having access to a computer makes me less likely to do other things. Should I read a new book, or go on the computer? If I have a computer next to me, it's simply more comfortable to go on it than to open a book. A smartphone would do to me what a computer already does. And for those who have the same problem as me, I'd argue that in this case the perspective of someone without a smartphone is less biased than that of someone who does.

jonasvp 13y ago
I feel the same way. With my smartphone in my pocket, I ended up whipping it out at every second of downtime to read... anything. Twitter, HN, news. That's not an indictment of smartphones but of myself. My wife does just fine with a smartphone, taking it out only to check her calendar. My solution: dumbphone in my pocket, Nexus 7 tablet in my bag. If I leave home without a bag, I won't need more than a phone. Otherwise, I have access to maps, mail, etc. but need to make a conscious decision to take it out - and look ridiculous when I walk around with it, which helps with the addictive part as well.
- kaybe 13y ago
  I have an old smartphone, but I don't pay for internet. That brings my monthly bill to around 3€, and I have music, maps, photo and video, calender, ... no mail though, which is fine because I have told everyone to just call or text me if it's urgent enough.
andrey-p 13y ago
I pretty much came to the comments to write what brandonhsiao did (only at less detail). Two more things I can add though: - A smartphone is sort of a replacement to a computer but not a very good one at that. Typing's more fiddly, last I checked the SSH clients were annoying, you don't have that much freedom out of the box. - My £5 phone is nigh indestructible compared to your average smartphone. I can throw it about as much as I want to (though I've never felt the need to) and if it breaks, I'm not too fussed about it. Nobody in their right mind would want to steal it, but if they do, I don't have to worry about any of my data or accounts being exposed.

justinhj 13y ago

1876, London, England: The enthusiasm about the telephone wasn’t shared in the UK. William Preece, chief engineer of the General Post Office, declared that the new gizmo was merely “a substitute for servants”. “There are conditions in America which necessitate the use of such instruments more than here,” he told a House of Commons committee. “Here we have a super-abundance of messengers, errand boys and things of that kind. The absence of servants has compelled America to adopt communications systems for domestic purposes. Few have worked at the telephone much more than I have, I have one in my office but more for show. If I want to send a message – I employ a boy to take it.”

sixQuarks 13y ago

What % of eligible young adults actually forgo a smart phone? By eligible, I mean they can actually afford to buy one. I would say less than 5%. In any system, there are always outliers. This is just one of them.

unsignedint 13y ago

One thing I like about smartphone is a way better international language support. Those feature phones, at least anything sold in states wouldn't support anything beyond latin charsets, so to me, there is no going back...

Dewie 13y ago

Dumbphones are great for communication, right? You've got the phone and SMS, what else would you need? Well, what if people start getting annoyed at you because you use SMS instead of a chatting application? At some point I didn't have a data plan and I would have to call/SMS people, and they would keep urging me to get Whatsapp so I could message me in that app rather than the historically vastly overpriced SMS.

danans 13y ago

I've been pondering a phone that is just smart enough that it did: 1) 4G+Tethering 2) Contacts Sync 3) Maps/Nav 4) Email/SMS It could even have a small screen and physical keypad. I don't think any such phone exists, but it would be an interesting exercise to chop down android to those elements. If we're moving towards wearables, I imagine that many narrow use cases might move towards watches, etc, that seem like tethered devices anyways.

honestcoyote 13y ago
It's a little too old to do 4g, but the Nokia phones which ran s60 / Symbian would do what you want. Many of them had GPS and could run Google Maps, most had wifi, and all were solidly built with several days of standby time. Look for the Nokia e71, which was probably the best one and I still see it for sale here and there. If you want something made in the last couple of years, Nokia's Asha line of phones would probably work, though I don't know if Google ever made a version of maps to work with s40-based devices.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  Nokia has pretty reasonable maps for their phones. You can even store regions on the device. (Here and Here.com are their current brand for it, I think the purchase of NAVTEQ was a big piece of their puzzle)

smprk 13y ago

What are the 4-5 top apps that you use on your smartphone and what % of time usage does that make? Currently the only apps I use (99% of the time) on my smartphone are - * Contacts, * Camera, * Email, * Maps. In that order. Confession: When smartphones had just hit the scene, I would stuff mine with new and shiny apps all night long, but in the long run, none of them stuck around.

maxerickson 13y ago
I think a big win from apps is that the system default software has to compete with something (and I guess it lowers the bar for trying new ideas). Cheap time waster games are also nice, and there seem to be niche apps where people that need them really benefit.

lastofus 13y ago

Up until a year a go, I had a "go phone" in my pocket. You know, the $20 Nokia based on tech from 7 years prior (aka. the drug dealer/burner phone/pay-as-you-go-POS). This was in my pocket for years as I tended to break phones every 18 months or so. It's amazing how everyone around me was constantly looking at their phone all the fucking time. From my technology-hipster POV, it was easy to see how people were missing out on, or just plain ignoring where used to be common social interactions. Then I got a bloody iPhone as an xmas gift. I've done my best to resist but... I don't think I could go back. I still have the common courtesy to not bust out the phone when other people are in the room, but I've lost count the times Google Maps has saved my ass, or having a distraction has saved me from hours of boredom. I think people forgot how to find balance between having the intorwebs in one's pocket, and not being an asshole.

Gracana 13y ago

I have a dumbphone because the plan required for a smartphone is enormously expensive. I just can't afford it. Hell, if I did have the money, I'd rather spend it on my motorcycle than on yet another way to view facebook.

rohanpai 13y ago

Does anyone know if it is possible to get a dumb phone that uses nano-sim? I want to try this out without switching permanently.

tirant 13y ago
You can just get a nano sim card to mini sim (2FF) adaptor.

Shivetya 13y ago

I am in the boat of having a smartphone only because it was required of me for work. I am required now to be in contact via email at all times. I certainly would never buy a smart phone if not simply because the contract costs for them are so obnoxious. Really, seventy five to a hundred a month, for a phone?!?!?! The features and abilities provided aren't worth a thousand a year to me, the loss of freedom certainly isn't.

mhd 13y ago

I'm getting a "Hipster PDA" deja vu.

servowire 13y ago

After 10 years of PDA/iPhone use (having destroyed, lost of worn out over 5 PDA's and 8 iPhones - 2G, 3G, several 3GS, 4 and 4S) I'm now on the lowest and smallest form of Android I could find. Just for calling, emergency telegram or maybe tethering for my laptop when really needed. Why? Because the constant checking my phone was starting to get counter-productive. Working and typing for a phone does not provide a wholly dedicated experience. At concerts, shows, events, etc. I started to take notice in the last years how everyone hunched into their phones instead of enjoying what was going on. We are simple beings and can only experience so much - having constant feeds of information erodes your mind. It takes years but this will be a hot topic in the coming years. When I lived at home 15 years ago my mother would taunt me "Get away from the computer some more" - Now I have to taunt her to put away her smartphone/facebook when I'm visiting her. The late majority of phone-users need to learn to control themselves. my 2 cents.

netcan 13y ago

It feels a bit off chopping and quoting a PG essay on his site but this bit stayed with me. I may have been thinking along those lines when I read it: "the world will get more addictive in the next 40 years than it did in the last 40… …as the world becomes more addictive, the two senses in which one can live a normal life will be driven ever further apart. One sense of "normal" is statistically normal… …someone trying to live well would seem eccentrically abstemious in most of the US. That phenomenon is only going to become more pronounced. You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly..." …People commonly use the word "procrastination" to describe what they do on the Internet. It seems to me too mild to describe what's happening as merely not-doing-work. We don't call it procrastination when someone gets drunk instead of working. … Sounds pretty eccentric, doesn't it? It always will when you're trying to solve problems where there are no customs yet to guide you. - http://paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://paulgraham.com/addiction.html This topic is very fertile for insight, personal or general. Most people would probably figure something out if they started writing about it. I think the crux is that surprisingly little of what we do is deliberate, and underexamined. Your choice of university or job might have been a grand crossroads choice that you made deliberately but many more choices are not. Impactfulness isn't really the trigger for deliberation in most cases, immediate commitment is. Choosing one book over another only impacts a few hours and a few dollars. A decade of book choices affects your personality, the things you think about and the way you talk. Many of our major maladies and deficiencies are related these undeliberate choices. I agree with PG on his insights about technology and "accelerating addictiveness" and the distillation of less addictive predecessors." Even more insightful is the idea that we can't rely on society and culture to guide us in the right direction concerning new things. That's probably where these dumbphone people are coming from. Sensing that there are cumulative bad choices related to carrying around a smartphone and making a deliberate choice to avoid them.

vvvv 13y ago
While I wouldn't downgrade to a dumbphone just yet, people keep poking fun at my old Blackberry. I do hate it a lot of the times when it crashes, when the GPS signal fails, when my thumb has to cover 500m distance on the annoying little square to read one webpage. However, it does (barely) what I would like my gadget to do: calls, emails, occasional map check and sending of a dropbox link. The experience is painful enough, that I don't treat it like a toy and hence feel no compulsion to baby it in my hand all of the time. Sometimes I feel like I miss out on all the apps and general development in the area, but that hasn't gotten acute enough yet for me to get a smartphone.

sanoli 13y ago

Is this going to become the new "I don't own a tv", where people think its hip and they feel the urge to tell others about it? Here's one of the few jokes I ever came up with: Q: What do you do if you want to find out whether somebody owns a tv? A: Nothing. If they don't have one, they'll tell you.

nnnnni 13y ago
I recently bought a TV and discovered that MTV is nothing but shows about kids having kids! What ever happened to the music? Matt Pinfield? Kurt Loder? Your joke is a good variation on "how can you tell if someone is vegan?"
- sanoli 13y ago
  Hadn't thought about vegans, but you're right, they're prone to the same joke. However, I do know vegans who don't make a point of saying it, whereas all the no-tv people (ALL of them) had the urge to mention it, although this was more in the 90's, when TV was still what the internet is today, entertainment-wise.

gioele 13y ago

> That's because the 24-year-old carries a $50 flip phone — the Samsung Gusto 2. There's no touch screen or apps. No Web browsing capabilities. No collection of music to enjoy through earbuds. I'd like to point out that that phone [1] can browse the web (using Opera Mini Brew), can install apps and games (using the Samsung Brew store) and can be used to listen to music via a common 3.5mm jack (even though it only has 128MB of storage). It even has A-GPS. "Dumbphones" have not been dumb for at least 10 years. [1] http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=3614 http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=3614