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Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Dumb Phone?
An anonymous reader writes: For those of us who don't need or want a smartphone, what would be the best dumb phone around? Do you have a preference over flip or candy bar ones? What about ones that have FM radio? Do any of you still use dumb phones in this smart phone era? Related question: What smart phones out now are (or can be reasonably outfitted to be) closest to a dumb phone, considering reliability, simplicity, and battery life? I don't especially want to give up a swiping keyboard, a decent camera, or podcast playback, but I do miss being able to go 5 or more days on a single charge.
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Some smart phones have an "ultra power saving mode" (see Samsung Galaxy 5/6) that essentially turns them into dumb phones. My Galaxy 5 will last 2 weeks in this mode.
No. The person sent in the question wants a dumb phone.
The stupid editor added the second question about a smart phone because TIMMY !
For POTS lines I prefer the Western Electric 2500 or 2554 depending on a tabletop vs wallmount application. They were designed when the phone company owned them and they were leased with the service, so they were overdesigned to last decades. Nearly every phone in my house is one of these two models.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
It is a Samsung GT-E1080i. Mine's a different edition from the ones I'm seeing online because it has Cyrillic (and English) on the keys. But who cares. You can get one for $4 + another $4 S&H off eBay right now. It'll be the best $8 you ever spent.
Most of the crappy battery life of smartphone is due to constant network polling by apps. If you just get a smartphone and use it as a dumb phone, then turning off cellular data will give you many days of battery life. Try it, you might be surprised.