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Comment by tomxor | Hacker News Reader

This has already been solved... a true phone for "minimalists, athletes and kids":

https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_gb/nokia-5310

It's only 3cm taller, the battery will last you a week and it has no distractions, oh and it's 34 quid.

More classic Nokia options here: https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_gb/classic-phones I've had a Nokia 208 for 7 years, I take it rock climbing all the time, it's been crushed and battered countless times and dropped from 60m - battery only lasts a few days now so time to get a new one (a new battery not a new phone).

These phones are great for sports because they are so rugged and they are cheap anyway so you can forget about them and focus on what you are doing. The stick phone form factor is also better for fitting into a pocket without restricting movement - I don't always want to take it on route but sometimes forget it's in my pocket.

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As someone who has a Palm Phone, this isn't really the same market. With that giant keypad, that device is optimized for something I almost never use (the phone feature), and it takes up a lot of real estate for what I might actually need (typing things I need to look up, seeing the results of what I want to look up). It wouldn't be able to function as my sole device.

How is the Palm Phone? What do you like and dislike?

Easily the best Android device I've ever had. Just wrote up a description here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23661964

I would agree with you if the battery life wasn't so terrible. I used it for a few months as my primary phone and have tried going back to it a few times. I really want to switch but the battery life is brutal.

Buy this phone if you like getting stranded at bars at 2am and asking friends to call you an Uber to get home.

Most of my phone usage when I am out is when I have an audiovisual notification of some sort. But keeping my phone on silent combined with the Palm phone never reacting to any program while the screen is locked, means I just use it less. So while occasionally it still runs out of battery when I'm out, in practice it doesn't do it any more than any of my previous phones.

"This has already been solved... a true phone for "minimalists, athletes and kids""

I believe this was solved more elegantly by the MOTO FONE:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Fone

... which was a beautiful piece of design and minimalist functionality. I used this as my only phone from (roughly) 2014-2016.

That one was an interesting design and aesthetic, but having also owned one for about a year in 2006 I have to say it was pretty terrible for usability of basic phone calls and texts (which is all I want).

There's still quite a range of "dumb" phones available. A concern of mine is always: can I sync it to my computer. As far as my research went, you don't get that, at least with entry level phones from Nokia (105/106). That's especially annoying as it wouldn't require much effort.

On a pretty different note, I'm surprised nobody ever mentioned Punkt phones [1,2] on HN. From a design standpoint, also taking durability into account, it looks as if they're worth a try. They're outrageously expensive but I still like the fact they've been built at all.

1. https://www.punkt.ch/en/products/mp01-mobile-phone/ 2. https://www.punkt.ch/en/products/mp02-4g-mobile-phone/

Does it run WhatsApp? Not really an option for most of the world if not.

This one does: https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_gb/nokia-8110-4g

To give context to nailer's succinct answer: some of fitness technology covered by DCRainmaker [1] works well with iOS/Android apps like Garmin Connect or Fitbit. This covers both continuous trackers that do not have GPS as well as the very large ecosystem of BLE sensors for runners/bikers/hikers.

I also need/want a device capable of 911 emergency calls for both away-from-home and electricity/Internet-outage scenarios. I have a laptop and/or tablet and when I'm away from a WiFi hotspot I am almost always active or my hands are engaged.

[1] https://www.dcrainmaker.com/

Fair enough, I think we are talking about different types of people - some people, like me, want a dumb phone for basic communication only, so they can get out to have some adventure without still being hooked up to the machine - we don't want the distraction.

But I understand others (mainly exercise enthusiasts) want to be hooked up because their drive is to track progress. In that case they really want a small smart phone which is what this palm thing is.

Different market. I want a smartphone, I just want a small one.

Then it's for miniaturists not minimalists.

The best small car isn’t a bicycle.

Minimalists sometimes need Google maps

As a minimalist, I can't deny the utility of digital maps, it's the most useful thing smart phones provide, and I would love to add it to an otherwise dumb phone...

For the same form factor and other benefits but at about twice the price the 8110 runs kaiOS which includes google maps among other things - it's a different ecosystem and you wont find all the same kinds of apps that you get on android but there are some big ones in there like whatsapp.

https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_gb/nokia-8110-4g

I might seriously upgrade to one of these at some point, feels like a good middle ground without going full distractophone.

[edit]

oh and of course you get to make infinite number of references to the matrix with this phone ;P

That does sound enticing!

Not available in the US?

I've been looking for dumb phones with just talk, text, and GPS in the US for years (at least two) now. The closest thing I've found is blackberry. I just want a phone that 1. can get me to my destination if I'm lost and 2. doesn't give me the opportunity to distract myself in other ways. I don't want to be beholden to my willpower - I don't want to be able to download apps at all.

wow, you are right, only one model available in US:

https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_us/classic-phones

That phone has a VGA camera and no gps.

Except you can't call an uber or listen to spotify with this.

As a minimalist and an athlete I find myself not wanting to do either of those things in the middle of the forest climbing something trying not to be distracted by technology... I guess we have different interpretations of the target audience.

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