Slashdot Mirror
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.
Have a question for Slashdot's readers? Take a look at other recent questions first to see if someone else has had a similar question. And if not, ask away! The more details and context you include, the more likely your question will be selected.
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...
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.
Available in single or dual sim - and an incredible 30 days (yes, one month) standby time.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)