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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.
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
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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