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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.
So, you want a dumb phone, but you want it to have smart phone features, and a huge battery charge, and lots of doo-dads and stuff ... just like a smart phone?
Well, good luck with that.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Those things really are indestructible. I would hop on Amazon or ebay and pick up a used one. Definitely worth it.
If that is not an option, then I would go something candybar. Every phone I have seen broken that had moving parts broke at the moving parts.
I don't especially want to give up a swiping keyboard, a decent camera, or podcast playback
Then you're stuck, or get a tablet.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
It looks like a blackberry, has a real keyboard, and can stay charged for 3-4 days while in use for texting. It has GPS, bluetooth, and web. but really not. I have this phone as a dumb phone...no data plan. It's pretty good.
Wall mount, plug in power block. Totally indestructible in either rotary or touch tone.
Motorola Razr v3xx is probably one of the best handsets of all time.
That said, its old, uses a now non-standard charge port, and all the hacked tools are no longer readily available.(Motorola PST, Qualcom's tool, etc...)
What's the best dumb phone? I want calls, voice mail, text message and battery life. That's it.
"Don't teach a man to fish, feed yourself. He's a grown man. Fishing's not that hard." - Ron Swanson
That related question that the editors added to the OP's question is going to screw the thread up.
They are hardly related -- and were obviously written by separate individuals.
Beware of the Leopard.
My parents still have one of these in their house, and it still works fine (even if dialing is tedious):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Since it's around 50 years old and still working, I'd say it's the best dumb phone.
Actually for this set of needs, take a look at the Nokia Lumia 635. Dirt cheap (off contract), good battery life, FM radio inbuilt, and no huge app store full of loads of apps to distract you with complexity (#iceburn). Seriously, I have a few of these on the bench at home for development work, and I recently replaced my in-laws' several-year-old flip phones with 635s. At the time I purchased them I believe they cost $59; they're now $49 (AT&T GoPhone variant).
In my experience, Mugen makes the best extended batteries (both in size and performance).
Of course this is not useful if your phone does not have a replaceable battery (e.g. iPhones). But in general any popular phone with a replaceable battery will have extended batteries made for it. You just put the extended fat battery in then use the provided replacement back panel that includes an enlarged area to hold the new fat battery.
I *always* get this for my phones because I get sick of having to remember to charge them.
http://www.mugenpowerbatteries...
The summary 100% contradicts the entire point of the article.
The comments are just going to be noise.
I've done a lot of research on this, and the Nokia Asha 501 is the best dumb phone I've found: http://amzn.to/1HncbcC
I purchased it because it was the most smartphone-like phone on which AT&T does not require a data plan (my definition of dumb phone, yours may vary). The battery lasts a few days when using it mostly for music and internet, or a couple weeks (!) when using it for calls only. It's small, but not too small to be useful. With it's built-in WiFi, it's the only dumbphone that I know that will do Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Email, and even a small number of games.
This is not going to touch any iPhone or Android phone by a long shot, but for the price it does pretty well.
Protect your browser with the Force Safe Search add-on
Personally I always like my old Nokia 5190 built like a tank, it made phone calls, and with the Li-ion battery instead of the NiMH it would go almost 2 weeks on a charge. That said I gave up on non smart phones recently as the last time I needed to replace my phone the only non smartphones available at the store were the flip phone model that went to shit on me in 8 months that I was replacing and the display model for a candy bar phone that they were otherwise out of stock of. I don't play "angry flappy craft" or tweet about my latest bowl movement from the stall at work but I do like the ability of my current phone to accept a huge SD card filled with my music and that it can run Navit but other than that one program I could do everything I currently do with a simple dumb phone.
Time to offend someone
It's a smartphone with great battery life. 4/5 days to me.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Imune to NSA evesdropping! ;^)
I love this phone combination:
1) Samsung Galaxy S4
2) Ginormous battery from ZeroLemon or equivalent
Cost: $300 for phone, $40 for the battery (current Amazon prices) so total is modest at $340
Great phone, lasts me for 3-5 days with moderate to heavy use, and will run any Android stuff I can think of. I use Cyanogenmod on mine, you might choose stock or some other variant, but this thing is quite durable and lasts forever.
In ultra power saving mode, a galaxy s5 will last two weeks, with very good call quality. Plus it cash become a supercomputer if you find the need.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Available in single or dual sim - and an incredible 30 days (yes, one month) standby time.
I'm still using the Nokia N73 I bought in 2006. It lasts about a week on a charge, but then again I don't really use it that often. I did have to replace the battery about 2 years back, but 7 years on a single battery seems fair enough. The only reason I'd give it up is the text on the screen is tiny and it's getting hard for my old bastard eyes to read it now.
Maybe you should try getting a second hand handset of ebay?
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
People tend to keep their old phones and there's little reason why you couldn't just re-activate some else's. Perhaps ask a friend for his and use that older model? If that doesn't work for you, Walmart still has old style phones in their electronics departments... I feel your pain though.... I use a phone to communicate, not to look at mini-versions of Facebook. Also touch screens annoy the crap out of me (unresponsive and typo prone). I use a 6 year old Samsung slide phone ATM. Laziness and a physical keyboard is why I keep it. I can wait long enough to open my laptop if I want an "app".
I had a grey market Nokia 301 that was awesome...while it worked. 2 weeks battery life with moderate text and talking. I thought it was THE brick, if I was going to have one. Until it died 11 months later. Completely turning into an actual brick. Very un-Nokia like.
I replaced it with a Cat B100. This thing is kind of nuts. As in throw it at a wall, take it whitewater rafting, and charge it weekly..That kind of nuts.
So I would have OP look at the Cat B100. It isn't designed by them, but some UK OEM that 'house brands' phones for CAT and JCB.
Pretty dumb phone, although with some effort you can browse, text, even take crude pictures. If you choose the right plan at Tracfone and keep to less than 1 minute a day, you can get by for ~$5 a month. Of course at home I wouldn't use anything other than my genuine Western Electric rotary-dial.
Several months ago, I spent many hours researching the same question, and eventually settled on the Nokia 515. I got the phone, and am very happy with it.
I just bought the Exelvan MTK6260A phone watch (2G) and it's great! Battery lasts 4-5 days, 1-2 days when using bluetooth a lot.
http://www.amazon.com/Excelvan...
If you want a smartphone that isn't a smartphone, I am assuming you want to avoid the app infrastructure of apple and google? I have no idea what your actual goal is, but blackberry solved this ages ago. What you really seem to want is a smartphone from before iPhones ruined the market for practical smartphones.
I submit to you: Blackberry Bold
insane battery life (remember BB was competing with dumb phones not smartphones, so the charge every 8 hours thing hadn't started yet) - 12 days standby 6 hours talk, 50 hours audio playback
camera, sure it has a decent camera
Insanely good Keyboard that openly laughs at "swipe" keyboards.
Podcasts, sure
costs about 80 dollars now.
you didn't say wireless phone...
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
my phone doesn't have a removable battery you Insensitive clod!
then just use my laptop/pad for anything resembling internet usage.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I really enjoy my Samsung Rugby III. http://www.samsung.com/ca/cons... It has a memo feature that is handy, a calendar, and each feature can be locked or kept open depending on your preference.
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.
Stop Looking At Your Phones
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Currently using the 2700 c-2, none of the advanced features ever get in my way, it survives kids throwing with it and has great battery life.
Is a smart phone, runs android 4.2, lasts over a week if only dumb phone features are used. 100 or so dollars.
Obviously how much you talk on it like a dumb phone matters, if I don't use it much I can get two weeks
Wanting a feature phone makes about as much sense as wanting an old wooden phone with a separate earpiece and the cone that you have to shout into. Technology doesn't stand still, and most feature phones are going to have poor reception since they won't support any of the newer networks. For example, Bell Canada's network is HSPA+, and does not support 2G GSM at all.
With smartphones available for forty to fifty bucks (like the Lumia 530), feature phones just don't make sense.
I *always* get this for my phones because I get sick of having to remember to charge them.
Why not just charge it at night? If that's hard to remember you can do what I do and use it as an alarm clock, then you end up checking it every night anyway.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Dumb phones are sort of like mechanical keyboards. Robust, archaic technology that works really well for what you need it for. However, they don't have as many flashy lights and can be a bit annoying for some around when you type on them - and in the end are going to rise in price because there isn't enough demand for them.
Get any of the cheap Kyocera. They're indestructible, and inexpensive (~$20 new). My S2100 last easily 2 weeks per charge. Probably closer to 3 with a new battery. I like the flip better than the candy-bar style as I'm abusive with electronics that I carry around. I think the flip protects the screen more...
No keyboard, no touch. Yes, I need to hit '1'-'1'-'1' for C, etc. when TXTing. But I hardly ever send TXTs, so it works for me. Calls are fine.
I looked into one of these (can't remember which brand now) for the Samsung S5, and all the reviews said the new replacement back sucked, wasn't waterproof like the old one, and worst of all, killed the speakerphone functionality because they didn't bother putting a hole for the microphone I think.
Your suggestion sounds good in theory, but in practice it seems like the replacement back/battery makers do a lousy job with engineering. It's too bad the phone makers themselves don't offer OEM batteries and matching fat back panels.
Plus, it doesn't help that the trend now is to eliminate removable batteries altogether. The S5 was the last Samsung with one; the S6's battery is non-removable. It seems that most consumers are just too stupid to appreciate removable batteries, and only care about how thin a phone is, and really don't care how long the battery lasts. Apple was right.
Phillips Nexium is a winner, in my view.
Batteries last almost one month, of course less if you will be talking nonstop. Some models have slots for 2 sim cards, some can have three sim cards.
No need to waste time monkeying around with the smartphone.
i love my LG Tracfone - i charge it, then only turn it on when i need to send a txt msg or make a call or use its calculator in the store - a full charge lasts MONTHS this way - oh, and the price? yep, $49 a year with pay-as-you-go and rollover minutes and triple minutes for life... the phone was $39.95, has a flip QWERTY, takes pics, plays music, etc. - what's not to like? Smartphones are overkill for me, but then again, i'm the type to sit on my front porch and yell at the neighborhood kids to 'Get the hell off my lawn!' :-)
Yeah, that's another complaint I read about somewhere. That would make it completely useless to me; one of my primary uses for my phone is for navigation.
I'm happy with the low end Blu phones. $20 for an unlocked dual sim phone on newegg. They have dozens of models. I use a candy bar, my wife texts more and used the blackberry style. Run a full week on a charge, and basically bulletproof.
Best dumb phone I've ever had. I still have one that travels with me for using cheap burner chips. Dead reliable and still available for around $40.00 new.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
It's 8 years old. I don't know if you can still buy them. It has had one battery change about 3 years ago and works great. It's a CDMA phone on the Verizon network. I pay $5.94 (including tax and fees) per month for 20 minutes of talk time. I have disabled voice mail and text messaging on the phone. So the phone rings and I talk, but not for long. In an emergency I can make calls... short calls. That's all I need in a mobile phone.
I should mention that I have a google voice number that rings my cell phone and my computer (Google Talk/ Hangouts). With a Plantronics headset, that computer-phone is the best sound quality I've ever had on a phone call. And it's free assuming you already have a wifi connection. Google records voice mail and allows free texting. So I have all the features of a quality smart phone for a very low cost.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
http://www.lg.com/us/touch-screen-phones?cmpid=sem%7Cmu%7Cmuao_2014campaign%7Cbing%7Cbr%7Cfeatures%7Ctscreen&s_kwcid=TC-18467-15408061578-bb-2102835509
the highly rated models i think are good enough. qwerty slider keyboards i prefer to 'swype'
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Samsung t139. It costs about $15 to $20 brand new (unsubsidized). I spend $5 to $10 per month on minutes (T-Mobile).
I've been getting a bunch of BLU phones for the kids for about $20 - $30 a pop.
http://www.amazon.com/BLU-Unlo...
They're by no means nice phones, but they have a good feature set, and we haven't had any problems with them that weren't caused by dropping them into puddles or sending them on a ride through the laundry machine.
BLU also has a slightly larger one with a full Blackberry-like keyboard for texting that also has a broadcast TV receiver instead of just FM radio.
AT&T 210M Trimline; no battery needed, it gets it's power from your landline so it works in a power outage, never has reception issues.
Hey, if you are going to be retro-technology boy for no good reason, might as well plug your phone into the wall while you are at it.
Answer to the 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?".
That's easy: any of them that you don't install all of those crappy, battery-sucking Apps on, and turn off polling for push notifications from Facebook, email, and so on, so they they aren't constantly running the battery down because then they can actually get the application processor into sleep state once in a while without some stupid polling interval waking them up to use more battery every few picoseconds.
The Motofone F3 is dirt cheap, light, compact and lasts long on a charge. It features an epaper display that is perfectly readable in full sunlight and is always on. It's quite convenient to be able to read the time without pressing the power button first. The disadvantage is that the segment display shows only a few letters at a time. If you want to do any amount of texting, it's too inconvenient.
Really, the only advantage to a dumphone is the inexpensive cost to replace it, should it become lost or broken. Most non-contract wireless providers with a "bring your own phone" option are perfectly happy letting you use a cheap plan on a modern flagship smartphone, so being a Luddite won't save you much on your monthly wireless bill.
Regarding battery life, the main reason smartphones don't have the endurance of dumbphones comes down to how people use them. If you turn off mobile data, WiFi, Bluetooth and background app refresh, even an iPhone 5 can go a week on standby. You could also just buy an extended battery, portable USB pack, car charger, solar charger, etc.
I suspect this is more about longing for the "good old days" when people didn't expect you to be reachable through e-mail and at least 3 different social networks. Sorry, but using a dumbphone won't bring those days back.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Nokia 1616 with a 1020mAh battery lasts more than ten days.
I kinda prefer the 500 (like 2500 but dial), little more classy. Not very good when calling a robot that needs you to press "1" for something, though.
Still have one, but killed the landline some years back now...
Sent from my PDP-11
If you're like me, it's the expense of your talk, text and data plan that you dislike, not the features of a smartphone.
I pay $20 every 90 days to Virgin Mobile (works out to $6.67 per month). I'll upgrade to a smart phone if and when the price of a plan that includes a reasonable amount of data drops to $15 per month. Until then, I'll make a mental note of what online content I'd like to consume, and wait until I get home to consume it.
Calculate the annual cost of your cell phone plan; do you find that having instant gratification of your online desires is worth that cost? Not judging; just curious.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
It's served me well for about 4 years now - still gets about 10 days on standby from a full charge on its original battery. SO & kids all have Samsung feature phones (not sure of the model - they look like Blackberry ripoffs) that take up to 64Gb MicroSD cards and seem quite happy with them. They're still on sale for around â90 (though sometimes on offer for ~â60) and seem to be in short supply, so I assume they're popular.
Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
Low power, only two openings with a sealed keyboard. e-ink display. Two week battery life. Get one!!
You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson: never try.
I have two. One to charge one of the three spare batteries. The other to use all the time. The battery lasts for days. The LCD black/white screen is readable in direct sunlight, like a Casio digital watch. The feel of the buttons means I can operate it without hardly looking at it. I dropped it onto tarmac while cycling. The front and back came off. I snapped the three pieces back together and it still worked. If I do break it, another costs £10. The mobile reception is good so it can make calls when others cannot. When the numbers wore off the keypad, a new keypad made it look much better.
The Nokia boom mic headset HDB-5 is a little masterpiece, it fits neatly on the ear and it can be plugged in by feel alone. Yes, the wire gets tangled sometimes but with no battery to go flat, it is better. For cycling, the mic end in a small piece of black foam trimmed to shape keeps the wind noise out. The stopwatch, alarm clock and calculator are useful. Certain callers I have assigned custom ring tones to, so I know when certain people call without having to look. I hold down a number button to dial certain numbers, for example, I hold button 1 for voicemail and 2 for home.
The only problem with this phone is when the keypad is unlocked, if I start dialling a number straightaway it will 'forget' the first few digits dialled and then I have to try again. There is a delay of about 2 seconds after unlocking the keypad before a number can be dialled manually. If I use the speed dial eg 2 for home then this doesn't happen.
Apart from that, it is in my opinion an almost perfect design. I like the Unix philosophy of small tools, where each does its job very well. I see no reason to ever have any other mobile phone for calls and text messages.
The problem with using a Windows Phone is that AT&T will probably still make you pay for a data plan that you don't use.
http://johnsphones.org/
except no swiping, etc. just a phone.
100 or so dollars.
Plus how much per month? AT&T forces "smartphone" users to buy a data plan.
Now the tethering thing would have value for me, if it would allow me to shut off the expensive DSL service to my home. Is that realistic? Who's your provider, and what kind of speed/reliability do you get?
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
I still have a Model 500 around here somewhere. As a teenager I had modified it to allow me to record telephone conversations to cassette tape.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
too many variables. If you choose a big name provider then there are more cell towers and lower power required by the phone, thus longer battery life, and put it into flight mode at night, or turn it off, for even longer battery life. No-one ever calls while you are asleep. :-) remove all but essential apps, except messaging and phone, turn off bluetooth and Wifi, and there you have a smartphone made dumb. You didn't mention a need for CDMA, 2G, 3G or 4G, which may limit your choices.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
I have had a couple Motorola v19x series for the better part of the last decade (v190, v195, v197). A fantastic dump phone if you want great battery life, great reception, and durability.
I have carried as many as 3 different phones at the same time... with a single exception, the v19x has always had signal where the others do not. Battery life is 10-14 days standby, 6-8 hours talk time. Actual numbers, not marketing baloney, I've been stuck inside a client building on a continuous 7 hour call before, debugging failed routers while talking to remote techs, while on a v195 with wired headset... the phone was still had battery life to go.
The only complaints are:
1) Battery replacements - after about 3-4 years of use the LiIon batteries swell and lose significant capacity. Most of the replacement batteries offered out there are actually 3-6 year old NOS which the seller won't tell you.
2) Several of the T-Mobile firmware versions suck, focused far more on trying to get you to buy ringtones/songs/crappy web access than concentrating on being a phone. The one I have currently is significantly less obnoxious.
3) Its now considered a long obsolete model and close to impossible to find new... Yet you can not find a single current phone that comes close in terms of battery life and signal quality.
Old phones can be good or great (even the Motorola F3 is kind of old already) but the chargers problem is a plague, and you might want one to leave at one and one to carry with you. Having the wrong size of "samsung plug" or worse sony-ericsson is frustrating.
It's still an option but if you choose to go with a new, recent dumb phone, there are ones with USB - real, micro-USB. So you're set with just one USB charger at home, and on the move you'll easily find a micro-USB plug at friends's and family's, and you can always bring one with you (if only a USB to micro USB cable) if you really need it. No special USB either, you only have to care about 500mA current.
You will typically get internal SD card slot and 3.5mm jack output on these phones, though you can ignore those features. FM radio is useful (perhaps not in the US if I believe the comments on some stories)
Nokia 215 is such one phone, but it's a not-quite-dumb one with a mini browser baked in (okay..) and a facebook app (and twitter) baked in the firmware.. Crap! if that's what you want go for it maybe. But there are other, dumber phones. e.g. Wiko Lubi 2 and Lubi 3 (present in only some markets, including UK)
Well, have a quick look at what's available, brands vary by region but USB is becoming standard. Samsung seems to be an outlier.
Seriously, slashdot TECH news. Dumb phones? get out of here with that backwards crap. Who even makes voice calls?
What is next, who makes the best black and white tube TV with only UHF pickups?
Perhaps a review on banging rocks together.
dumb phones. Get out of here grandpa!
The motorola Quantico or the kyocera dura XT are the dumbphones I've carried - I like riding my motorcycle year round - phones like those can take shock, water, being thrown against a wall and still work.
I've owned both and while I liked the Quantico better - US Cellular moved out of my region so I was forced to the dura XT on Sprint.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Thing is, I don't want to make or receive phone calls or text messages!
I hate them.
The only reasons I own a phone are because a smart phone is a small handheld computer that can surf the net, play games, play music, show movies, and do other useful tasks (alarm clock, exercise timer - even flashlight). And a smart phone can act as a modem for my laptop to connect to the internet.
So ... remove the smarts - the data, the computer-like features, the hotspot - and all you have left are the two things I don't want: phone calls and SMS.
I am anarch of all I survey.
Somewhat a smart phone but with wifi disabled, data disabled, 2g mode enabled, you can get from 7 to 12 days out of it.
Good reception too, it's definitely the new Nokia dumb phone.
My mom is unfortunately on my phone plan because she can't manage her own finances well enough to pay for a phone herself.
Last November she lost her closest-thing-to-a-dumb-phone-I-could-get-her. It would still do web stuff, but... in a very dumb way, like "smart" phones before the modern (iPhone/Android/etc) smart phone era did. I simply could not get her a phone that only make phone calls, but that was close enough for those purposes.
And then she lost it, and I had to replace it. I wanted the cheapest goddamn dumbest simplest most basic phone possible. All she wants or needs to do is make phone calls. She doesn't give a flying fuck about texting or internet or anything! (Or she didn't at the time, and I wish it had stayed that way). All. She. Needs. Is. A Phone. But to get her a "dumb" (not even, like before) phone would have actually cost me more than their cheapest generation-or-two-old smart phone, a Galaxy Mini S3. Now she's fucking addicted to it and sucking up all the data (that I barely even use) on my plan.
What the fucking fuck has happened where it is simply impossible to get just basic phone service without paying more for it!?!?
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
No GPS. No web. No chat. No texting. No apps. No operating system at all, to speak of.
All it can do is make phone calls and receive phone calls. That's it.
It's the ultimate dumb phone.
"Fish" (David B. Trout)
it's a pretty simple phone but it has a battery that has a 39 days standby time and 20 hours of talk. of course these numbers depend on if you are in a place with a few or lots of overlapping cell tower signals.
check it out: http://www.microsoft.com/en/mo...
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
My new smart phone tries to phone home to Facebook (which I don't use from my smart phone to conserve the battery), Instagram (which I also don't use), my cell carrier, Amazon, Samsung, and whole host of others. I'm tired of having to kill stuff, root my phone to disable it, and just generally not be able to uninstall the crap-tastic carrier force-fed apps. Now, thanks to something called Digital Turbine, carriers can now force your phone to download and install apps. Oh yea, and it eats into YOUR data cap when they do it. Some carriers will allow you to remove the apps but others don't. It'a all enough to make you want to go back to a flip phone......
I have a Kyocera Jax S1360. It works great, and the battery lasts more than a week per charge.
I take my very basic HUWAEI dumb phone with me on any journey just for the battery life and ease of sending text messages. The menu options include very useful notes, calendar, and alarm. It has also web access and camera but I have little use for them.
I'm rather happy with the little Samsung S150G "Candy Bar" phone that I picked up at a dollar store; it was on sale for 50% off, so it only cost me $5.
The only down side to it is: I have to buy prepaid Tracfone service cards (which have either 60, 120, 200, or 400/450 minutes and 90 extra days of service, or a 1 Year (of extra service) and I think it was 700 minutes), of which the smallest minutes-denomination is available here at the low price of $19.95. (I think the 1 Year cards are about a hundred dollars. I usually get the 120-minute cards, though; they cost about $40, if I recall correctly.) But on the other hand, my phone comes with automatically-doubled minutes for life, so there's that.
It's also not a flip-open phone, so the screen gets smudged and smeared every time I make a call — but it's easy enough to clean it off.
As far as battery life goes: I have its display set to the dimmest setting (and only rarely increase the brightness), and I have the display set to turn off after five seconds; sound profile is almost always set to 'Silent' with no vibration.
I leave my phone on all the time (though I don't often use it), and it lasts for about a week — if not a day or two longer — before I have to charge it. It also only takes about two or three hours to charge.
I've noticed an odd quirk with it, though: if you cross from one Time Zone to another, you have to turn your phone off for a while (maybe as long as an hour or two, but I've never timed it) and turn it back on — otherwise, upon crossing into the new Time Zone area, the phone will constantly report "No Service", even if you ordinarily would have service.
The phone has Internet access, but it's slow, and also terrible because the screen is (for websites, at least) tiny — plus, it costs minutes to access the Internet; I personally view it as a waste of minutes, but perhaps others might be handy in an emergency or something.
It doesn't come with a data cable, unfortunately, but the phone has a MiniUSB or MicroUSB port in the top (usually for the charger(s), or the earbud that I never use); I've borrowed a friend's Kindle Fire HD's USB cable and it fit perfectly.
I think it's a good phone, though. I can call people when I need to, and — if I really need to — I can text people (for a cost of 0.30 minutes per text (or, in English, 18 seconds — but the phone instead shows the silly fraction)). I rarely have problems with service anywhere — the only times I have really had problems with service was when I was crossing Time Zones, and also inside a friend's house that is apparently a Faraday cage for cellular phones (and, in their words, said house is "made of middle fingers" — it's a pretty terrible house).
I have two dumb phones that I rarely use, mainly meant for emergencies or travel once or twice a year. One is an old Nokia phone with a old T-Mobile prepay plan. When I got the phone I bought minutes for 100 bucks and whatever minutes are left roll over if I buy new minutes before they expire. I string that plan along for years now and it costs me 10 bucks a year. Sadly, T-Mobile no longer offers this plan (boooo!) and solely for that reason I went with an LG 530G from TracFone. They offer a similar plan that T-Mobile has, but it is not as low cost. The LG phone also has a web browser, but I never used it because it eats minutes like there is no tomorrow. It is not entirely dumb, but all I care about is voice service. I prefer a flip open phone, but they tend to be more 'expensive', I think for either phone I paid 20$ with promos and coupons. That is about as much as I am willing to spend on a mobile phone. The Nokia phone has FM radio in it, but I never used it. I also see no need for FM, but others might. If you are looking for bargain bin pricing without signing a contract and are interested mainly in voice service then the LG 530G from TracFone isn't a bad choice. It has a full keyboard and that is surprisingly easy to use despite the microscopicly small keys. There are also plans out there, that charge a flat fee for each day you use it. If you use the phone a lot only during a few weeks out of a year then that might be the cheaper option. I'd get a smartphone if it wasn't for the ridiculously expensive data plans. I wouldn't even mind to drop 200$ for the phone if the monthly access fees would be around 20-30 $ for unlimited service on everything. Still, I'd see it more as a toy that I splurge on than a necessity. There really isn't anything important enough I'd need to get to online that cannot wait until I am back at home. Besides that, who the heck wants to surf the web on a tiny screen anyway?