I switched from an iPhone to Nokia 515 two years ago and vowed never to go back. If I wrote a blog post like this it would probably just be, "Living smartphone-free in the 2020's is like having a superpower, it's utter joy and freedom and and everyone still with a smartphone is a total sucker."
Then a couple of weeks ago I felt the social pressure and lack of a good camera so I bought an iPhone 12 mini. It was awful. I returned it 48 hours later and am now back with my beloved Nokia.
The grass really is greener this side of the fence.
As the author points out, buying a simple a android phone and disabling most of the "smartness" is a much better option.
This is what I did and it works surprising well. I still have a decent camera and can use my banking app etc.
You could say that I actually have a pretty decent phone I just disciplined myself to use it as little as possible.
Edit: the part I am really missing is the compactness of a dumb phone. Years back I had a tiny Xperia Mini and liked the size of it. I would love to see a successor at around $300-350.
> I just disciplined myself to use it as little as possible.
By now, I have no illusions of being able to discipline myself to that extent. Even with many time-sucking apps uninstalled, there's always a fast browser on the smartphone, and it's a big temptation by itself.
I think it’s perfectly healthy to use it all the time as long as you don’t sit there doom scrolling on instagram. It’s not what it is but what you use it for.
This morning I’ve had mine in my hand since I woke up. I’ve done my schedule for the day, worked out a food and exercise plan, organised an evening out with my friends, done my finances, edited a couple of photos and given my daughter delivery estimate for her new iPad. It’s just gone 08:05 so I’ve got half an hour to shitpost on HN :)
How a shovelphone is better? The author mentions 5 days is great battery life. My old dumbphone with halfdead battery has 5 days life, and it's short, used to be 15 days or so.
I too tried to ditch my smartphone, buying one of the re-released Nokias.
The experiment was DOA, since there was no way of transferring my contacts from the iPhone to the Nokia. Furthermore, Sweden runs on BankID (an electronic id service) and it wasn’t available for the Nokia.
What did work on the other hand, was buying an Apple Watch with cellular. Now my phone is often in my bag/car/house and I’m still reachable via the Apple Watch, but have no way of doom scrolling.
Correct me if I’m wrong but you can do BankID with a chip and pin device from the major banks?
When I first got BankID it was not tied to my phone and it was a lot of hassle to figure out how to make that the case with Handelsbanken (my bank at the time).
Much easier with Nordea, nordea having greater English support (though not amazing) and a much better web interface (bordering amazing when compared with Handelsbanken).
You can always do what I do. Delete 90% of the pre-installed apps from a Smartphone and disable most notifications. Then be really really discerning about what you then install to that base from its App Store. Effectively turning a smartphone into a dum phone/feature phone.
If you use a social network long enough it really becomes extremely hard to do.
I honestly find it harder to quit all social networks than quit some drugs.
I uninstall/reinstalled the same social networks sometime multiples times a day, I often closed a social network webpage only to instinctively retype the url seconds later.
The only thing that kinda works for me is software that block all social medias.
I suggest you read "Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products.".
Personally I dislike – even resent – having to own a device I don't like, that I don't control (not without extensive hackery, which I don't have the interest or time for), and where I have to create accounts and accept various EULAs I don't like to use basic functionality.
Of course, you can go the Replicant/PostmarketOS/etc. or Purism/PinePhone or whatnot route, but then you're missing out on so many things and/or have to spend so much time on things (not worth it for me) that you might as well not get a smartphone. A smartphone is greatly reduces in value if your banking app and $popular_messenger_app doesn't work. And besides, it only solves part of the problem: I still have a device too large to comfortably use, in spite of being quite tall with big hands.
It's hard to resist. It's like being on a diet/fasting but having your cabinets stocked with all unhealthy food or a drug abuser with free drugs they can't have.
As others have mentioned, this is not really a dumb phone. Sure it puts some more _friction_ into using modern Internet connected services, but you can still basically do everything a modern phone can do (it has a full modern browser). Heck you even get the modern experience of ads everywhere despite the limited screen and memory (the ads are all modal pages)!
In fact, much of the review centers around "smart" features -- things you'd probably need an Internet connection for -- rather than phone features.
For reference, here's a video that shows how KaiOS works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFMu6a7jL54 . I'd say that's pretty smart for a phone! Low resolution non-touch screen, sure. But it has modern website support in case you need it + plenty of communication and SNS apps...
If anything, I'd guess most people are more comfortable ditching the "phone" part of a smartphone (no calls or SMS support) so long as it has Internet. Limiting yourself to no more than WAP-level Internet support (no CSS or JS support at all)? That's the true dumb phone experience.
You can do some things but I wouldn't stretch it and say you can "basically do everything a modern phone can do" because in my country I can't use it to identify myself, I can't do banking on it, I can't ride the bus, buy tickets for trains, make payments and a lot of other very essential things that are now in our smartphones.
A phone that can run apps doesn't count as a dumbphone on my book. Do I use the term differently than most people? When I think of dumb phone, I think of the StarTAC, probably because it was my first. The RAZR was dumb, too, in my mind. A modern example for me is the Punkt MP02. It runs Android, technically, but you wouldn't know it, because you can dobmuch with it but, you know, use it as a phone. That's dumb to me, a phone that is a mostly just a phone.
The RAZR could run J2ME apps though. At the time there were J2ME Facebook, Twitter, Opera Mini web browser, Google Maps (with street view), tons of games, etc.
When the original iPhone came out and didn’t support apps I (unsuccessfully) argued that that meant it wasn’t a smartphone, and it was even less smart than most dumb phones on the market.
At the time I used Sony Ericsson dumbphones, and they had very rich J2ME support - you could set Java apps as a live wallpaper (which iPhone still doesn't allow), multitask (which took years to get to the iPhone) and all this on very very modest (single-digit MB RAM) dumbphone hardware.
Just a tip -- I use my apple watch and leave my phone at home. I can listen to podcasts and music, call and read emails and texts, use maps and the fitness app. I save up all my emails and texts for when I'm sitting down and with my ipad. Turns out, when I'm with friends or my girlfriend or commuting i don't need a phone. And when I'm at work or home or in a cafe I have my ipad or computer.
It's not for everyone, just saying there exists devices between dumb and smart phone for those of us who wants to tune out a little bit.
Edit: Re battery, I’d say 12 hours. If i use it a whole lot, which i rarely do, i’d say 6 hours. Whenever i come home, i put it on the charger by the door, next to my keys.
Life is too short to waste distracted by a smartphone. I prefer to use a the large screen and keyboard of a laptop for communication. I am still using a 2G phone with a B&W display for emergencies, for example if I get lost or held up meeting friends. Even then I'll have discussed a contingency with them - the old-fashioned way. I pay next to nothing to keep the account open, and the tap-texting naturally limits my desire to use it for more. Rue the day that GSM is shut down. I also have some text alerts set up from a script running at home to let me know about urgent things.
I tried moving to a proper dumb phone, a Nokia 105, a few years back. I found out that it’s a massive social disadvantage, very isolating and means you have to carry more crap around all the time and keep more context in your head. It’s ten times more difficult to adapt to changes without information at hand. Experiment ended after three months and I’m glad it did.
I get the ideological thing here but realistically smart phones are a really really good bit of tech and I adore mine.
Ouch. I do have smartphone but do not have data plan. Use it strictly as a phone, camera and offline GPS. It has close to zero social value to me. If I want to socialize I either talk to my friends on Skype from my PC or just visiting in person.
That's the point. I call it "knowing what you need to be in control of your life".
> It's ten times more difficult to adapt to changes without information at hand.
I understand - for me, the argument goes that if I find myself needing to frantically google something, then I'm already on the wrong path. I accept this means that some lifestyles are not possible. Personally, I prefer it.
I also switched to a Nokia 230 ~2 years ago, first just as an experiment, haven't gone back so far.
I tried a KaiOS based phone also in that time, but that was so unbelievably unstable that I ditched it after using it for two weeks or so.
I still have a smartphone powered off in a drawer, that I pick whenever I need that (~once a month, for banking stuff, using Google Maps to drive to another city, etc). I have Telegram running on my laptop and a few other things like the app for my mowing robot.
In general, also at work, I like to mute all notifications if I need to focus, heavy Pomodoro user, too.
There are not that many downsides for me. Sometimes someone asks me to send a phone number to them, which is only possible via Bluetooth. So I need to write the number down on a piece of paper, type it back into an SMS and send it. What a waste of time - I first thought. But in reality, that dump phone saves much more time, than these little pieces of manual effort cause, so in the end, I still have more free time. I was surprised at how often I do things that I don't need to do that often, e.g. checking my bank account balance.
My approach on this problem was first to use the dedicated Apple's solution, that is the time management control panel.
Spoiler, that never worked as I would turn on and off the constraints based on my needs. I was consistently unsatisfied and endlessly blaming my lack of will. Thus, I really understand the point of view of the author to readily constraint himself with the hardware instead of software knobs easy to turn off.
Rather of buying a new phone, it worked for me to just live with my iPhone 6 until today. It became so slow that it achieves pretty much the same behavioral perks but still supports a wider range of useful features imho like keeping my Spotify account usable on my commute.
Opposidely, my reddit addiction -- and news sites in general -- completely disappeared as the website now takes seconds to load and the panel advocating to download the app takes up half the screen making it just unusable.
This is not a "dumbphone"; those don't exist anymore now that the 3G networks have been turned off.
This "dumb" phone has an entire main-CPU OS, a web browser (!), and then another entire OS on the modem chip (which, of course, runs code which you have absolutely no influence over).
I had several life-changing events occur early 2021, which led to me not using any telephone services, whatsoever (until late 2021). Instead, I purchased a one-way pager (Pagers Direct) on a two-year contract, for <$9/month.
When I tell people to "page me," I get one of two responses:
A) "What does that mean?!" (typically younger folks, less than thirty), or
B) [Initial Disbelief] "They still make those?!" (typically older folks, above forty)
I absolutely love it; of course this affects my social life... except that I run with an extremely small crowd, in a particularly small subset of my mid-sized US town.
I now have access to my cell phone, but it never leaves my house (used essentially as a landline, because it costs less than a local landline); I will BLOCK my Caller ID when making phone calls to anybody (outside a few trusted contacts), and I never hand out my new cell phone number (and disabled my decades-used phone#).
To each his own — I am mid-30s, and used to be 1337 ... never really understood cell phone culture, and am happily marching to my own beat!
I'd buy a Nokia 3210 if the _ONLY_ upgrades were:
1. (even) better battery, 2. (even) less power consumption, 3. (even) better signal reception and (4) support for modern phone providers (so I can actually make calls and send texts with it no matter where I am).
I don't want a new display, case, operating system software or anything else, and that's why the 3310 falls short.
I thought it was funny how the author explained typing text messages and also T9, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T9_%28predictive_text
Then again I realised that many younger people might had never have heard of them. Time flies.
> If you are looking to keep your smartphone life, don’t get this phone, or any dumb phone for that matter. Instead, get a budget Android device.
This is exactly what I did after trying a dumb phone. I have to say asisd from all the diversions, smarthpones do bring very nice features. I just wouldnt want to miss E-Banking, 2FA for some of my apps and so on.
This is why I bought a Wiko Y81 for 60$ and I continue to love this phone. It is so painfully slow that it truly allowed me to get my social media habbits off. However while being slow it is still a solid phone, reading, listening to spotify and doing emergency stuff (like retrieving a lost boarding card from google drive) works fine.
What's even better is due to its weak screen the battery lasts forever! It's so refreshing to just leave the house with 15% battery for the day and still getting through.
I used one of the variants of the Nokia 100s model for 3 years. (2017 - 2020). After using these dumb phones my habit changed and I don't exclusively rely on my phone anymore. Even though I have a smartphone now, it is practically useless when I am _inside_ my room. I use my phone to just communicate and occasionally read PDFs. It doesn't have any social media apps, so the worst I do is browse the web once in a while.
But one huge advantage smartphone has is the camera and the maps. These are really the killer feature for a smartphone. Everything else is a bonus!
The bonus includes mobile banking, receiving important emails, and so on!
Life is simple when you throw away the cancer apps from smartphones. Then proceed to use it as it should be used i.e. just a phone!
The particular Nokia device mentioned in this article is now a little out of date. It will not receive any new updates. The Google service might even stop working on it (depending on where you live). The author will soon be quite upset. The next version of KaiOS is on the way, sans Google services, but with baked in FB and Twitter.
For the gadget tweakers, this device can be "hacked" a little and have alternative apps loaded (and bloatware removed) so that is a plus. Its sister device, the Nokia 800 Tough, is also tweakable and can be set up so the batter lasts 4 to 5 days (getting rid of all bloatware and making it an SMS/Telephone will do that to most phones though).
> Apps including WhatsApp, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google Maps, as well as others that you can install from KaiOS Store.
> Google Assistant. It’s not deeply integrated with the device (more on this below) but it can still be useful for voice text entry and quick Google lookups.
> Ability to sync your email, contacts and calendar, or simply import your contacts from a third-party service.
[+] [-] rnkn|4 years ago|reply
Then a couple of weeks ago I felt the social pressure and lack of a good camera so I bought an iPhone 12 mini. It was awful. I returned it 48 hours later and am now back with my beloved Nokia.
The grass really is greener this side of the fence.
[+] [-] octoberfranklin|4 years ago|reply
You must not be in the US... that is a 3G phone and the 3G networks here are either shut off or in the process of being shut off.
https://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_515-5663.php
[+] [-] bowmessage|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnicholas|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GoblinSlayer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pasdechance|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zibzab|4 years ago|reply
This is what I did and it works surprising well. I still have a decent camera and can use my banking app etc.
You could say that I actually have a pretty decent phone I just disciplined myself to use it as little as possible.
Edit: the part I am really missing is the compactness of a dumb phone. Years back I had a tiny Xperia Mini and liked the size of it. I would love to see a successor at around $300-350.
Please make it happen Sony
[+] [-] jamix|4 years ago|reply
By now, I have no illusions of being able to discipline myself to that extent. Even with many time-sucking apps uninstalled, there's always a fast browser on the smartphone, and it's a big temptation by itself.
[+] [-] hughrr|4 years ago|reply
This morning I’ve had mine in my hand since I woke up. I’ve done my schedule for the day, worked out a food and exercise plan, organised an evening out with my friends, done my finances, edited a couple of photos and given my daughter delivery estimate for her new iPad. It’s just gone 08:05 so I’ve got half an hour to shitpost on HN :)
I am completely set up for a productive day.
[+] [-] GoblinSlayer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barrenko|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brtkdotse|4 years ago|reply
The experiment was DOA, since there was no way of transferring my contacts from the iPhone to the Nokia. Furthermore, Sweden runs on BankID (an electronic id service) and it wasn’t available for the Nokia.
What did work on the other hand, was buying an Apple Watch with cellular. Now my phone is often in my bag/car/house and I’m still reachable via the Apple Watch, but have no way of doom scrolling.
[+] [-] dijit|4 years ago|reply
When I first got BankID it was not tied to my phone and it was a lot of hassle to figure out how to make that the case with Handelsbanken (my bank at the time).
Much easier with Nordea, nordea having greater English support (though not amazing) and a much better web interface (bordering amazing when compared with Handelsbanken).
[+] [-] beermonster|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pedroaraujo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] isolli|4 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precommitment
[+] [-] throwawaynay|4 years ago|reply
I suggest you read "Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products.".
[+] [-] Beltalowda|4 years ago|reply
Of course, you can go the Replicant/PostmarketOS/etc. or Purism/PinePhone or whatnot route, but then you're missing out on so many things and/or have to spend so much time on things (not worth it for me) that you might as well not get a smartphone. A smartphone is greatly reduces in value if your banking app and $popular_messenger_app doesn't work. And besides, it only solves part of the problem: I still have a device too large to comfortably use, in spite of being quite tall with big hands.
[+] [-] rootsudo|4 years ago|reply
Self control and discipline start somewhere.
[+] [-] jxidjhdhdhdhfhf|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jabbany|4 years ago|reply
In fact, much of the review centers around "smart" features -- things you'd probably need an Internet connection for -- rather than phone features.
For reference, here's a video that shows how KaiOS works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFMu6a7jL54 . I'd say that's pretty smart for a phone! Low resolution non-touch screen, sure. But it has modern website support in case you need it + plenty of communication and SNS apps...
If anything, I'd guess most people are more comfortable ditching the "phone" part of a smartphone (no calls or SMS support) so long as it has Internet. Limiting yourself to no more than WAP-level Internet support (no CSS or JS support at all)? That's the true dumb phone experience.
[+] [-] INTPenis|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nabla9|4 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_phone
[+] [-] GoblinSlayer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nulbyte|4 years ago|reply
A phone that can run apps doesn't count as a dumbphone on my book. Do I use the term differently than most people? When I think of dumb phone, I think of the StarTAC, probably because it was my first. The RAZR was dumb, too, in my mind. A modern example for me is the Punkt MP02. It runs Android, technically, but you wouldn't know it, because you can dobmuch with it but, you know, use it as a phone. That's dumb to me, a phone that is a mostly just a phone.
[+] [-] kalleboo|4 years ago|reply
When the original iPhone came out and didn’t support apps I (unsuccessfully) argued that that meant it wasn’t a smartphone, and it was even less smart than most dumb phones on the market.
At the time I used Sony Ericsson dumbphones, and they had very rich J2ME support - you could set Java apps as a live wallpaper (which iPhone still doesn't allow), multitask (which took years to get to the iPhone) and all this on very very modest (single-digit MB RAM) dumbphone hardware.
[+] [-] paxys|4 years ago|reply
I'd personally define "dumb phone" as one that doesn't use the internet at all, period.
[+] [-] Voeid|4 years ago|reply
seriously?
[+] [-] zinekeller|4 years ago|reply
Huh, how abandoned is it really?
[+] [-] MrJagil|4 years ago|reply
It's not for everyone, just saying there exists devices between dumb and smart phone for those of us who wants to tune out a little bit.
Edit: Re battery, I’d say 12 hours. If i use it a whole lot, which i rarely do, i’d say 6 hours. Whenever i come home, i put it on the charger by the door, next to my keys.
[+] [-] hughrr|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throw8932894|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway74737|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whoibrar|4 years ago|reply
If former, what other ways you've adapted for essential stuff that need a smart device.
If later, do you ever plan on getting a smartphone again ?
[+] [-] L0in|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hughrr|4 years ago|reply
I get the ideological thing here but realistically smart phones are a really really good bit of tech and I adore mine.
[+] [-] FpUser|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ya_throw|4 years ago|reply
That's the point. I call it "knowing what you need to be in control of your life".
> It's ten times more difficult to adapt to changes without information at hand.
I understand - for me, the argument goes that if I find myself needing to frantically google something, then I'm already on the wrong path. I accept this means that some lifestyles are not possible. Personally, I prefer it.
[+] [-] alfredbez|4 years ago|reply
I tried a KaiOS based phone also in that time, but that was so unbelievably unstable that I ditched it after using it for two weeks or so.
I still have a smartphone powered off in a drawer, that I pick whenever I need that (~once a month, for banking stuff, using Google Maps to drive to another city, etc). I have Telegram running on my laptop and a few other things like the app for my mowing robot.
In general, also at work, I like to mute all notifications if I need to focus, heavy Pomodoro user, too.
There are not that many downsides for me. Sometimes someone asks me to send a phone number to them, which is only possible via Bluetooth. So I need to write the number down on a piece of paper, type it back into an SMS and send it. What a waste of time - I first thought. But in reality, that dump phone saves much more time, than these little pieces of manual effort cause, so in the end, I still have more free time. I was surprised at how often I do things that I don't need to do that often, e.g. checking my bank account balance.
[+] [-] epilloud|4 years ago|reply
Rather of buying a new phone, it worked for me to just live with my iPhone 6 until today. It became so slow that it achieves pretty much the same behavioral perks but still supports a wider range of useful features imho like keeping my Spotify account usable on my commute. Opposidely, my reddit addiction -- and news sites in general -- completely disappeared as the website now takes seconds to load and the panel advocating to download the app takes up half the screen making it just unusable.
[+] [-] octoberfranklin|4 years ago|reply
This "dumb" phone has an entire main-CPU OS, a web browser (!), and then another entire OS on the modem chip (which, of course, runs code which you have absolutely no influence over).
I miss dumbphones.
[+] [-] Jaruzel|4 years ago|reply
You'd really have to want to do this though, but it would be a good learning project.
[+] [-] ProllyInfamous|4 years ago|reply
When I tell people to "page me," I get one of two responses:
A) "What does that mean?!" (typically younger folks, less than thirty), or
B) [Initial Disbelief] "They still make those?!" (typically older folks, above forty)
I absolutely love it; of course this affects my social life... except that I run with an extremely small crowd, in a particularly small subset of my mid-sized US town.
I now have access to my cell phone, but it never leaves my house (used essentially as a landline, because it costs less than a local landline); I will BLOCK my Caller ID when making phone calls to anybody (outside a few trusted contacts), and I never hand out my new cell phone number (and disabled my decades-used phone#).
To each his own — I am mid-30s, and used to be 1337 ... never really understood cell phone culture, and am happily marching to my own beat!
[+] [-] dusted|4 years ago|reply
I don't want a new display, case, operating system software or anything else, and that's why the 3310 falls short.
[+] [-] seb1204|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamix|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vardagsnytt|4 years ago|reply
This is exactly what I did after trying a dumb phone. I have to say asisd from all the diversions, smarthpones do bring very nice features. I just wouldnt want to miss E-Banking, 2FA for some of my apps and so on. This is why I bought a Wiko Y81 for 60$ and I continue to love this phone. It is so painfully slow that it truly allowed me to get my social media habbits off. However while being slow it is still a solid phone, reading, listening to spotify and doing emergency stuff (like retrieving a lost boarding card from google drive) works fine. What's even better is due to its weak screen the battery lasts forever! It's so refreshing to just leave the house with 15% battery for the day and still getting through.
[+] [-] going_ham|4 years ago|reply
But one huge advantage smartphone has is the camera and the maps. These are really the killer feature for a smartphone. Everything else is a bonus!
The bonus includes mobile banking, receiving important emails, and so on!
Life is simple when you throw away the cancer apps from smartphones. Then proceed to use it as it should be used i.e. just a phone!
[+] [-] pasdechance|4 years ago|reply
For the gadget tweakers, this device can be "hacked" a little and have alternative apps loaded (and bloatware removed) so that is a plus. Its sister device, the Nokia 800 Tough, is also tweakable and can be set up so the batter lasts 4 to 5 days (getting rid of all bloatware and making it an SMS/Telephone will do that to most phones though).
[+] [-] zokier|4 years ago|reply
> Google Assistant. It’s not deeply integrated with the device (more on this below) but it can still be useful for voice text entry and quick Google lookups.
> Ability to sync your email, contacts and calendar, or simply import your contacts from a third-party service.
What makes this a "dumb phone" then?