Dumbphone Finder | Hacker News Reader

Dumbphone Finder

josebriones.org

60 pointsbookofjoe56 comments

I don't need a dumbphone, I need a smartphone from ~2016.

I don't need a 50MP camera, or a high-res display, but I do want to be able to use maps, TOTP, NewPipe, a browser, my personal email, and a few Android apps that I've written for my own consumption.

Most importantly, I want a 48hr battery life, and I want it in a form that actually fits in my hand. I had that in 2016, but there aren't any phones like that being made any more.

You're basically describing modern day smartwatches

Do you have one you'd recommend? Last I looked the Apple Watch was the only one people were reliably satisfied with, but I'm far enough outside the Apple ecosystem that I'd be missing a lot of the value people get out of them.

Absolutely this. I've been phoneless for about 2.5 years now. It's been glorious in many ways, but as my business connection network grows it's becoming a lot more cumbersome to interact with people.

Get a smartphone from 2016 then. They are available, used, for cheap. Take a model that runs LineageOS, and maybe a new battery (some of them are user-removable).

I have the original Pixel as my daily driver. Everything works flawlessly including banking apps.

Don't recommend anything older than Nexus 5x, they're way slower than I remember, and also I can tolerate a really slow device but not a really high touch latency.

All these phones I bought used has a decent battery life, lasts around 2 days without charging.

I had an old Moto G until I finally decided it was too dangerous running without the security upgrades. I thought about trying a custom ROM but community support for that device is weak.

2016-ish feels like the year phones peaked for me. After that it feels like things went in a direction I’m no longer interested in. I’m still using my original iPhone SE from 2016 and it’s still great. I replaced the battery recently and I can go two days on one charge. I love how small it is. I’ve never really wished for a larger phone (just better eyes). I also don’t need a faster phone because I only use my phone for basic phone things. For anything more demanding, I have a laptop.

I need a smartphone, but I am the master (not apple/google/etc)

GrapheneOS.

Just get an iPhone SE. They're small, still functional, and inexpensive.

I tried for years to use these type of phones.

I need Signal… so it had to be an Android phone. I also need a good map app, and Spotify.

I tried many of these phones, and they all had 2 main problems: poor build quality (random shutdown, compass failing, random android bugs), and bad bluetooth, making it impossible to use headphones (I even tried to use wired headphones, but then, there's no wired earbuds with active noise cancelling).

The only phones that were "good enough" were the 4" Unihertz Pocket and the 3" Jelly.

But the bluetooth situation was unbearable (cracking noises, sync issues), and some hardware problems just made me anxious (couldn't rely on the phone to wake up, or going on a hike).

I just ended up getting a Zenfone 8, which is a massive phone, but considered the smallest. It's way too big for me, and does way too many things. But… there's no other options sadly.

Based on your needs you can’t really use a dumb phone; so why torture yourself by pretending a cheap-ass smartphone is a dumb phone?

Yes, form factor and "dumbness" are orthogonal - it sounds like the commenter you're replying to wants an ultra compact smartphone, not a dumbphone?

Correct.

I need a small phone that just do basic stuff. But sadly Signal and Spotify are what I consider basic.

Signal and Spotify are available for iOS, so why don't you get a 4.7" iPhone SE?

Because I want my phone to be as basic as possible. No notifications, no icons, just plain text menu.

Android can be configured to be so bare that my phone is just a black screen with 5 menu items: music, signal, map, text, phone.

Personal preference.

You can still do it on iOS using a custom launcher, such as Blank Spaces [1].

[1] https://www.blankspaces.app/

I agree; I've really tried to find a phone that isn't "modern" but has the features I need and want..has to be able to make phone calls, encrypted messaging of some form, GPS and NFC payments while not being beholden to G/A/M. I've yet to find that so I still look. Currently use Graphene on an older pixel but it lacks NFC payment ability.

> encrypted messaging of some form, GPS and NFC payments

That’s exactly what “modern” is.

Yeah I worded that incorrectly. I want a modern phone and capabilities but I don't want the "smart" phone.

I use lineage supported lte tablets with sd cards, rooted without google play (10 inch) that are usually around 50-100$ used so you don't even care if they get lost.

You don't use those on the go to distract yourself, because it's in your pack. I stopped drunken texting and calling people alltogether as well.

Ebook-Reader, LUKS with termux, VPN, WebDAV makes this essentially your digital home on the go without the hassle to open/boot a laptop.

A low-tech life page that is a newsletter prompt, a sales pitch, and a collection of affiliate links. This website is ironically a lot of what’s wrong with tech.

Don't forget the Dumbphone Quiz!

Or the fact that it doesn't render without third-party javascript!

It returns a single phone for me. No information, just a stock photo and a link to buy it,

This page adds value with the big property filtering list, and the first few things I tested looked correct. Though it could be laid out a lot better.

(Amazon's, OTOH, is usually worthless, IME, and is more like additional noise shoveled into their high-noise shopping experience UI. So the user of this other page might be mentally filtering out what looked like familiar noise.)

I have to be honest, I don't really understand the appeal of the "dumb" part. You can just buy an android/apple phone and... only install the few apps you want to use. You don't need to go out of your way to buy a device that's incapable of more.

It seems like a lot of these phones have physical keyboards or are just more compact than the average phone too though - I see how that could be appealing.

Yeah, I don't get it either. I buy the least fancy iPhone I can, keep it until it dies, then buy the next entry level iPhone. I turn everything off: Safari, podcasts, all sounds and notifications, games, even the camera. Recently I've enabled lock down mode. I use it for SMS, phone calls, 2FA, and for navigation. That's it. I don't understand the need for all of the apps.

I imagine the battery life in a dumb phone (assuming you opt for the ones that don’t run Android) would be much longer.

If your usecase fits in a voice calls and SMS then a dumb phone, especially with a weeks of standby, is an appealing proposition.

Size matters too. I have the three phones (all Android) on me and thanks what I'm not a 1.5m asian lady.

> You don't need to go out of your way to buy a device that's incapable of more.

You're right someone could uninstall all of the apps they don't want, but the apps (and the internet) are *addicting*. It's understandable that someone would want a phone where installing Facebook, or whatever, is impossible. If you buy a phone that is incapable of doing something, then it requires no will power on behalf of the user.

This would be my reason for a “dumbphone”, as a less distracting alternative. They also tend to be, in my limited research, cheaper, so if I am out traveling and it gets stolen I am not out hundreds of dollars but rather only $75-$100.

Do it like me and you can make “no willpower needed” work with an iPhone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38850248

Even though I agree this solution is extremely hacky, it does work.

It's a physical barrier for those who are unable to form the psychological barrier they need.

The same sort of practice as buying a box of "snack sized" potato chips because you have a habit of eating more than a serving at a time when you purchase a normal bag.

For the only person in my life who expressly desires a “dumbphone” (which is to say a severely locked down version of Android with access to various messaging apps, the basic functionality of a phone, and maps) is that he is mentally unwell with various difficult-to-control urges and believes the only solution is to block his access to web browsers or anything that can be used as one.

His secondary reason is he misses the early 2000s aesthetics, which is something I am more in tune with.

Dumb phones tend to have much better battery life and are smaller. Can you even have an Android phone with an old-school numeric keyboard? I guess it's either a full size touch screen, or some niche qwerty keyboards, or nothing.

You can. And then you're still stuck with the compromises of a smartphone. It's short lived in terms of battery life, and it's quite fragile as a result of being "mostly a glass screen."

I've been experimenting with flip phones for a while now, and my current daily carry (for when I carry it - I often leave it behind or power it off) is a Sonim XP3+ [0]. Battery life is "a week if I leave it on, two if I turn it off at night," and it's waterproof, drop proof, and a bunch of other mil-spec toughness proofs (I don't care about rapid decompression, ideally, but it's been tested for that).

And I can use it in gloves, in the snow, without trouble. The environmental range is quite a bit wider than most smartphones, and everything is an actual physical button, no virtual buttons or touch sensors.

[0]: https://www.sevarg.net/2023/12/30/more-flip-phone-sonim-xp3-...

I've experimented with dumb phones before but in the end I found much more success in ditching my data plan as the ideal forcing function for shaping behavior. There are too many situations where smartphones are extremely useful if not necessary. What's not necessary is being constantly connected. Ideally you have a SIM card that can always do text and calling, and you can opt-in to data on demand e.g. 24-hour prepaid plan if you ever truly need it.

Does anybody know a dumbphone that also has reproducible open software builds?

I've tried out a lot in the past, including FirefoxOS, KaiOS, and Bada based ones...but all of them are not as open as they claim to be. If they are open source, it's usually just the UI which is useless without the firmware and drivers.

I would love to get a dumbphone again and hack around in it, and I saw a lot of potential in the "bananaphones" but they are more in the state of legal grey area to hack with secret GSM codes and DRM bypasses and exploits etc.

KaiOS was very nice as a daily driver, even with T9 keyboard, because the occasional quick mobile internet address lookup worked, too. They also have some kind of deal with meta regarding whatsapp, and a special WhatsApp client that works, so you are not "that isolated" while still ditching all the social media apps.

The general issue with KaiOS is that it only works with Firefox pre-quantum, which has so many SSL related problems that you literally have to fork the very old codebase just to get the devtools/debugger working. It's a shame, really.

[1] https://sites.google.com/view/bananahackers/home

Dumbphone subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/dumbphones/

I would lean towards opting an old used Pixel or iPhone (ensuring the battery health is atleast 80%) to be a backup phone than strictly restricting to dumbphones. Keep it in airplane mode always, restrict it to a very few "survival" apps, place it in minimal battery consuming setup and it should work better as a backup than these phones.

The dumbphone quiz on this page leads with 'do you want smart apps' and I might just be out of touch but I have no idea what that is. Ddg and kagi yeild either brands or something to do with sensor enabled iot device deployments.

Apps that use GPS and location maybe? Apps that have dynamic content?

I think that just means "do you want to be able to install arbitrary android apps". At that point what's the difference between that and a regular smartphone?

A nice idea. You can get lucky and bring your own phone to a network but there are subtle implementation details between dumbphones and expected services, let alone updates to SMS protocols that can "break" device functionality.

I only want a smartphone without a web browser. iOS lets you easily block and unlock it. In Android, it’s almost impossible to block.

Either way, I’m doomed

It’s possible to actually, really really restrict yourself with an iPhone, do what I do: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38850248 . Additionally disable Safari.

I wish there is dumphone with activesync. Just sync email, calendar, contacts and notes.

KaiOS can do that, at least for some email/calendar/contact providers.

KaiOS is owned by Google. Not a reason to go for dumbphone.

I want a phone that is just call/text and email. Nothing else needed. Does it exist?

Look up KaiOS phones.

KaiOS has an app store with a lot of useful functionality available. Sunbeam is probably a better option, though email doesn't need to be low latency for a lot of people (including a lot of people who feel it has to be low latency).

The Punkt MP-02 is this, and Sunbeam sells an F1 configured this way.

Xioami phones are not sold in the US, yet the Quiz recommended it to me.

I would like to have a dumb phone with J2ME support.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com