Ask HN: Are there any 5G feature phone out there? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Are there any 5G feature phone out there?

13 pointsthetoon13 comments

I'd like to decouple phone and "pocket computer", for both security and "digital hygiene" reasons.

So far, feature phones I could find are 4G at best. Though I definitely thought there'd be a market for connection sharing capable 5G feature phones. Am I alone?

View on HN

For anyone interested, there is a database here : https://dumbphones.pory.app/

To save everyone the time. When filtering by 5G: "No results found"

Poster would have better luck dumbing down a smartphone, and refraining from installing any additional apps or app stores.

I follow this market a little, and haven't seen one yet. The brands I'd check would be Nokia and Doro. There was a company making small power bank and feature phone combo but I can't remember the name.

It might be more fruitful to look at mobile broadband hotspots or whatever they're being called now. Could imagine a 5g one of those would be more likely?

There’s Punkt (4G though) https://www.punkt.ch/en/products/mp02-4g-mobile-phone/

There's not, that I'm aware of, at least in the US market.

And using a feature phone for security reasons is laughable. Feature phones are notoriously insecure.

If you need tethering, just use a 5G hotspot.

Why are we using the term “feature phone” to describe phones that have unusually few features?

That's a real good question. I always supposed their name was out before smartphones (which are definitely more "featured") existed.

Like a safety razor, which is much less safe than modern alternatives.

Probably because the only things you can do on that phone are things for which there is a feature. That's what distinguishes it from a general purpose (smart) phone. Similar to the distinction between general purpose computer vs an embedded system.

Why 5G feature phone ? I assume you want 5G purely for future proving ?

More for connection sharing/tethering, actually. Just because I don't want to use a smartphone so often doesn't mean I don't have a laptop with me.

Why not just using a 5g hotspot?

I like calls and texts as well ;)

One option would be to have a 5G hotspot AND vowifi feature phone, but it'd be much more convenient as a single package (not to mention I'm not even sure there are more vowifi feature phones than 5G feature phones)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com