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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.
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.
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.
tweet about my latest bowl movement from the stall at work
Instead of tweeting about bowl movements, you should get the maintenance folks to tighten the mounting bolts.
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.