🤷🏻♂️ true but, I do like having access to social media as addictive as they are designed to be. it keeps me in touch with people, local activism, pop culture
Some people want to disconnect from all the digital distractions and just use their phone as a phone.
They intentionally want to disconnect. I get it, that's not you. You still want the social media connection, and there's nothing wrong with that. Other people, mainly, those who want "dumb" phones, don't.
You can completely block the social media apps from your phone then. Anything that encourages someone with a fully functional phone to go out and buy another one is a waste of resources.
I do like to disconnect, which is why I have the app blockers lol
And planned obsolescence isn't a waste of resources? We are basically forced to toss away fully working phones after 3-4 years because the batteries can't be swapped. You have to take it to some shop you've never been to, and have them take it apart in a specific way, in order to get a new battery. Usually the cost isn't worth it and for a little more you can get a brand new device... The sales people always push you that way regardless.
So having the option of a feature phone when the forced upgrade inevitably happens, wouldn't that be better than forcing people to buy an over powered phone with more capabilities than they want?
I'm not saying someone should take their perfectly working iPhone 12 and toss it in the trash for a feature phone just because.
And I just want a small Android phone that fits in one hand.
The last one to be around iPhone 13 mini size is the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact from 2018. And if you want original iPhone SE size, then the "latest" one is the Samsung Galaxy Y S5360 from 2011.
Oh what I would do to magically make my old Samsung S4 Mini usable again...
The reviews of the Jelly series seem to conveniently leave out how it is to type on.
I would like that size but I need to be able to type a casual whatsapp message every once in a while or add an appointment to my calendar.
I am considering buying something cheap and (relatively) small from AliExpress to see how that works and if it's a size I like. I'd hate to spend Unihertz prices only to find out it's too small for me.
It's great, but a bit too small and thick (...let me just stop you there), and the design is just not really modern or elegant. I didn't have problems typing on it, personally. But it's either the Jelly Star, at 3", or you basically jump straight up to 6" minimum.
Interesting, but taking it a too far to the tiny end - I don't need a phone I can hide in my prison pocket, just one that fits in my regular ones.
Also Unihertz has terrible software support and doesn't provide android upgrades for their phones, so it's already in a sense 7 months out of date - and sadly obscure enough that there isn't much custom rom development either.
I see you and me are looking for a similar phone. I want to be able to comfortably hold and use it with one hand.
As someone else mentioned Unihertz makes some smaller phones that aren't limited in specs but some may be too small for my tastes. I am still looking to see what would be a good size since I want to be able to type on it with some comfort.
The S4 mini wasn't quite that small, but typing comfort on small phones depends entirely on how comfortable you are with using swipe/gesture typing, as that's realistically the only normal way to do it - any on-screen buttons are just too tiny to hit accurately unless you go landscape.
Screen size stops being meaningful when you start comparing phones released years apart - the 5" Shift5me is 141,5 mm x 71 mm, phones around that width have seen screens all the way from the 4.3" of the 2011 Philips W920 to the 6.2" of the 2024 Samsung S24. For reference, the S4 mini was 4.3" at 124.6mm x 61.3mm.
But if that is an acceptable size of a phone, there are still few of those around, thankfully. It's just about the limit of what I can comfortably handle at all (Pixel 4a currently)
I don't want a dumb phone but I would 100% take a phone with a back that isn't glass, high repairability, and full control over the OS. Make it THICC and put a big battery too.
Wanna to hear worse? In Turkey you can not import a phone with shipping. You have to bring it with yourself and register it with your passport after paying around 1000 dollars.
I'm not 100% sure on this but there is always the possibility your carrier could always block devices it does not recognize. I need to look more into this.
Also, it seems that someone has already started to work on bringing mobile Linux "PostMarketOS" to the new Shiftphone. It's not even released yet. If it's officially supported, I'll have a favorite brand for sure. That kind of software support would be unprecedented (except maybe the Librem as mentioned earlier but their hardware repeatability is much lower).
From what I understand about phone design, it allows for the smallest possible design that can still do NFC and wireless charging, while keeping that premium feel.
I don't give a damn about premium feel, I just want a no-nonsense phone that does what it's fucking supposed to while still being serviceable.
I thought I would miss pay to tap, but then I realized there's another device that supports pay to tap. So instead of taking out my phone to pay, I take out my credit card
I've been getting my family into lora. It's nice just having Ubuntu that texts. I still use my phone for mobile connectivity as a hot spot but apps are largely going un updated, and their silly ads unviewed.
Obviously not the solution for everyone but damn its freeing if you can.
I looked at this when replacing my TV. If you want a nice panel the options are pretty limited, or you have to pay for commercial sets or a projector. I settled on creating separate VLAN for my smarttv and limiting what apps are installed on it and sourcing a blocklist for all its tracking shit.
You can just never connect your TV to the Internet or make it forget all networks, that works pretty well if you have a console or PC hooked into it that is doing the actual content for it
You still have to deal with the piece of shit taking forever to turn on, and the possibility of it simply dying because any component of the "smart" part died.
People want phones that don't cost $1000+, lack basic features and constantly prey on their personal data. That's what they want. Some express that by saying they want "dumb phones", but the first part is the larger driver here.
A big part of the markup is simply the proprietary systems that run the phone. Apple's restrictive OS, combined with the planned obsolescence strategy for older units, corral their customer base into buying newer models every 3-5 years.
Android's open system allows for competitor brands to compete alongside the bigger publishers - Samsung and Sony and Lenova and Motorola. But even then, we've lost the more modular phone design to a hobbyist-hostile manufacturing strategy that precludes people from swapping out old batteries or doing basic repairs.
This, combined with data providers that try to bake the price of new phones into the subscription service (AT&T, Verizon, and Tmobile all offering "free" phone upgrades on painfully expensive plans) make the industry this extractive rent-seeking mess.
I think that last bit is more of a 'what you make of it' situation, regardless of how smart or dumb a phone is.
Unfortunately the manufacturers want the data and advertising revenue, and they'd only be persuaded to offer an alternative if they made the same amount of money.
If each sale of a $900 smart phone gives them $100 of ad revenue over a couple years, I'd bet my bottom dollar they would charge $200 for the 'dumb' version.
I think the distractions are partially a user issue and partially a company issue. Companies make their programs noisy with notifications by default that I only change it once I've found it annoying. They also make their program so bloated that they are slow to load and execute. By the time the app loads, I've lost my flow and now the tool is a nuisance. My mind is already cluttered. I don't need tech to slow it down.
I see what you mean. People use their devices at different levels. That may not be the best way to put it.
My meaning is that a portion of the users will be the type to spend a couple hours digging through each setting on a new device to set it to their needs. Another group will use the device with minimal initial adjustments, and tweak things as they find things they don't like. Then there's a third group that will almost never open a preferences panel and just use a device by its factory settings, likely to never consider potential improvements to their user experience.
From what you've said, I imagine your in that second group. I myself am in the first one I described; I look at the options of any hardware I purchase or software I download before I actually begin to use it.
Unfortunately - in the context of this post - the number of people in that third group I imagine outnumber us by multiple orders of magnitude, and therefore companies with shareholders to appease will always manufacture devices with as much bloat and advertising and invasive data mining as they can be paid to put in.
I'd love a cool gimmicky phone that flips open or whatever, and has a small screen or a really bad frame rate. Just to discourage me using YouTube and social media.
I just don't know what I would use to navigate around
I want a phone that has an eink display but an ecosystem for apps. I want my battery to last weeks, I want my communications conduits to be dead simple, and I want to be able to run an OTP authenticator on it.
If the thing I'm expected to have becomes highly useful for the things I'm expected to have it for while also interrupting my bad habit tendencies, I think it would be a good fit for me.
Do you want e-ink or would you rather have a Gameboy display? Transreflective LCD can be a lot faster and have better colors. You can even add a backlight
I'll take a shot: Life is a disease of chaos that spreading itself across the universe that long forgot about it. In order to survive it must consume itself, but keeps spreading slightly faster and has only recently started to shape its own future.
We as a species? We do it because it feels good for the most part. Nature was cruel and we figured out how to keep the pleasure center of our brain happy, and are trying to do that as efficiently as possible. Evolution is cruel and humans are no exception. When primates are threatened they go straight for the throat and balls to remove all challengers. We as a species can get more together; but greed has tipped the balance. Hard times are here and it will likely take drastic change to correct the scales.
We as a collective individual? As our perspectives and priorities change, there will never be a single answer for an individual at any point in their life, so it's hard to provide insight to anyone reading. The first task is to get to know yourself, what are you good at, what do you suck at, what's the most attractive part of your body, what's your best hairstyle, we are all unique and unless you can honestly answer this, you still have work to do. If you had unlimited cash, what would you do? Keep in mind quit my job is not an answer! Aside from getting bored in a few weeks, the actual point of this exercise is to identify what your priorities are. Would you run an organization to do something? What's your passion project? It might be to spend it with your family and that's a great answer for a happy life. Bill Gates went to Africa to help people, Elon Musk bought Twitter so people would talk about him. At the end of the day, your reason for doing it and mine will be different, but you need to find what you can do that will bring you efficient happiness. If it helps; I like chasing a lot of different things and finding the best it has to offer, I also love my dogs. Best of luck in your search.
I'm genuinely sorry to hear that. From my own journey, I recommend trying to find something that you realize is tolerable to fun. Engage in that activity and actually stop to appreciate that you are in that moment. Just absorb how those emotions feel and try to embrace that frame of mind. Often I would get wrapped up in doing something and not appreciate that I was enjoying myself. I would spend my 8 work hours hating my job, getting worked up by the news and wallowing in those emotions and that becomes your mindset. Identifying that change is constant and trying to embrace what you have now creates moments that are worth indulging in. Now I add slurpee runs to project plans just to make my days slightly more enjoyable and novel. They will likely get stuck down, but at the least it's a softball for someone to roast for a good laugh. But more often than not we take 15 minutes and get a slurpee. Those coworkers are now friends. It took years before discovering I was neuro atypical, don't be afraid to seek help and see if there is something different about you and if you can do something about it.
i just recently found my dumbphone (samsung intensity 2) from right before I got a glowiephone. It has access to email, apps for facebook, myspace, and twitter, and a web browser plus full slideout keyboard. So whatsapp, banking, and NFC shouldn't be difficult at all. Only issue is that unless the bank makes a dumbphone compatible version of their webbed sight they'd need to make a unique app for every manufacturor ecosystem instead of the relative ease of one android and ios app to rule them all. Or have an API for the manufacturors to make their own doggone apps.
