Ask Lemmy

26701 readers

2653 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics.

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

Bluetreefrog@lemmy.world

candyman337@lemmy.world

TheSaneWriter@lemm.ee

TheSaneWriter@lemmy.thesanewriter.com

candyman337@sh.itjust.works

Asudox@lemmy.world

can@lemmy.ca

lemmy_bot@lemmy.world

beefbaby182@lemmy.world

AsudoxDev@programming.dev

Dumb-phone suggestions? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago by mesamunefire@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

20 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Lately I have been having a lot of fun playing around with mestastic devices, older phones, and so called "dumb phones". I dont plan on getting rid of my current smart phone (at least any time soon) but I do want to see how it feels to go back to a dumb phone.

Anyone have a preferred dumb-phone setup that still works with 4G?

I want to be able to:

Make/receive phone calls
At least be able to see texting
Replaceable battery
(optional) some sort of directions (google maps/OSM+ etc...)

Things I have looked at:

Ive been looking at some of the new Nokia offerings and it looks like they are going full retro which I like. I just dont like how thin the plastic looks. It looks like the phones could die at any point.
I took a look at https://www.wiphone.io/ and that looked neat, but no GSM (phone calls outside of wifi) so thats a no go.
https://dumbwireless.com/products/punkt-mp02 looked almst perfect....then I saw you can repair the device or replace the battery.
https://dumbwireless.com/products/light-phone-2 looks nifty but again cant replace anything.
Sunbeam F1 Horizon might be a good fit given that you can take out the battery but the price is a bit steap.

What do you all think?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I looked for this and it sort of doesn't exist. I need it for a technologically challenged family member who gets hopelessly confused by smart phones. I have had the idea of writing an Android dumbify app that runs in kiosk mode (i.e. there is no way to exit it) that just disables everything except phone calls, and keeps the phone keypad permanently on the screen, like an old fashioned phone with physical buttons. It's on my infinite todo list.

A minimalist launcher is probably the easiest possible solution to that. Aster for example is available on F-Droid. The only issue I could see is it not having a lock function that would prevent them from accidentally entering some sort of edit mode.