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Comment by diablo1 | Hacker News Reader

I bought a few dumbphones from Amazon because I am scared that smartphones will be so pervasive and that dumbphones will be slowly phased out and you will be unable to buy them anymore. Smartphones are difficult to repair because the circuitry is hermetically sealed and you need specialist tools to open them up and tinker. Dumbphones, not so much. The parts are accessible and can be swapped out with working parts easily.

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Only a few feature phones (dumb phones) even support 4G LTE. If you buy a phone without LTE support then it will become useless once carriers switch off their 3G GSM / CDMA base stations.

Might be better off to buy phones specifically designed for that, e.g. PinePhone or Librem 5.

Thanks for posting this -- I hadn't heard of the Librem 5, and it's fascinating.

The Fairphone is also quite good for that

There's a market for that geared towards senior citizens (they show up in daytime tv ads).

They'll exist as long as there's a market for it.

That said, the definition of 'dumb' phone is going to vary, and senior citizens in 30 years will be seeking what looks like today's iPhone, or an android phone. Maybe.

I bet we move to a different medium that is easier on seniors bodies. Many seniors complain they can’t see the screen and their dexterity isn’t good enough to use smart phones easily. Judging based on my anecdotal experience with the elderly and those needing accommodations speech to text, text to speech, accessibility features and airplay are commonly used and I think this trend will continue.

There are a few hobbiests who've been working on smartphones powered by small chipsets like the Raspberry Pi Zero using off the shelf parts.

There are also rather a lot of KaiOS smart phones with the form factor of a flip phone, although I don't know how easy to repair they are or how many of them work on US networks.

Do you mean "feature phones" or landlines?

I haven't heard 'feature phones' since I used to read consumer electronics news sites (like Engadget, then This is my Next/The Verge) years ago.

I don't think anyone else uses the term; to the layman, they're 'dumb phones', to contrast with 'smart' (although increasinly 'smart phones' are just 'phones').

Or since those are American sites, perhaps it's actually a variation of regional colloquialisms.

Feature phones have capabilities beyond just making calls/sms but less capabilities than smart phones.

Yes, I understand it, I'm just saying I haven't heard anyone other than a consumer electronics journalist use the term. Everyone says 'dumb phone' (to mean the same thing) if the distinction is important.

"Flip phone" is another common term (for those that fold anyway.)

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