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It's easier to make a regular smartphone minimalist than to buy a minimalist smartphone. Do the environment a favour.

My iPad is disconnected from everything else. It's made to draw and read, nothing more. It has only 4 apps and all notifications are turned off.

My smartphone is also very quiet, because I aggressively disabled notifications. I only get instant messages and calls. Everything else is off. If that's too much, there's silent mode.

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This works great for me. I have only a few apps, like a piano tuner, don't use Safari on my phone, and its peaceful. The key to me is to stop looking at the phone as a computer and use it just for texting and calls.

I bought a refurb, like-new, unlocked iPhone XR 64GB in 2020 for $500 on eBay to replace an Android phone, because Google's forced updates kept breaking basic phone features, like zooming a picture. I had updates and WiFi disabled, but somehow they managed to shove updates on me anyway. That and their constant nagging for more permissions for basic things like texting and speech-to-text.

I also take this approach with a low-end Pixel. Only a Signal message or call notifies.

No social media apps also key.

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