Only if they can hardwire all the data collection in. That is too big of a money maker for them to give up.
I don’t want a dumb phone. I want a circa 2014 smart phone that is not expected to replace my laptop and serve as a constant data stream for corporations. I want to be able to visit a website on my phone and not have it try to get me to download an app, be ads on 70% of the screen, or just be unreadable formatting. Let me call, text, do a basic online search, play a stupid flash game, and take my money. Stop being greedy and trying to make everything I do monetizable
Is fair phone (review) that? Its camera and battery are sub-par for the money, but it says that it makes up for it in many ways, like longevity and ability to swap out components that in other phones can mean almost getting a new one. It sounds kinda perfect for my use case but I’ve never owned one so can’t be positive. When my current phone dies, this is something I’ll heavily look into.
Personally I’m very happy with my fairphone. Knowing I can replace parts when they break is nice. And idgaf about camera as long as it can take a halfway decent picture, so a phone that skimps on camera for less cost is a win in my book
That is literally the top feature I am looking for: skimp heavily rather than go all out on the camera, so basically the exact opposite of a Pixel. Whatever amount I pay for a phone - $100-$500 - I want the camera to be perhaps 20% of the price, not well over half as tends to be the case these days. OnePlus especially the “flagship killers” used to be the most similar to that (or at least you didn’t pay the Premium for Pixel while getting significantly lesser specs), but after their cofounder left when they enshittified I simply don’t trust the company to ever purchase anything from them again.
I have a Fairphone 5 and it’s… ok. It’s definitely overpriced for its specs but you can’t really expect a cheap phone while cutting down on slave labour at the same time. It’s also quite buggy. Not unusably so, but coming from a Galaxy S9 (yes, Samsung bad, that’s why I switched), it’s a bit jarring. For example, sometimes I’ll pull it out of my pocket and it’s mysteriously off. I turn it back on and there doesn’t appear to be a reason for it and it works fine. A few times I’ve had the battery drain insanely fast for some reason, despite the phone reporting no apps having high battery usage. Some apps also have issues on occasion, Discord for example tends to get stuck in the gallery view after you send a picture and it doesn’t allow you to open the keyboard again. It’s also missing some minor, but neat things, like the ability to snooze alarms by turning over the phone (Edit: tbh that’s probably a stock Android thing and not really fair to hold against the phone, but I still miss it) and the fingerprint reader is nowhere near as reliable as the one in my Galaxy S9.
The vast majority of the time it works just fine and if you don’t expect the polish you’ll get out of a Samsung flagship, you’ll probably be ok with it. But you are very much paying a premium for the sustainability and repairability, not the overall experience. I don’t regret supporting Fairphone, vote with your wallet and all that, but I definitely recognise the device itself has issues and when looked at purely on specs and software quality, it isn’t really worth the money.
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences - that should definitely help people!:-)
I wonder if they perhaps have some QA issues, so you got a lemon, or maybe the design itself is just that bad. You wouldn’t necessarily know, I’m just musing out loud!:-P
One thing I do want to ask if you don’t mind - b/c I don’t know how to interpret the specs and I no longer trust paid reviewers - is how smooth does it handle? Like, noticeable lags or no? If it is basically a cheapie smartphone for a sub-flagship price, I might even be okay with that but wanted to know before getting into it.
Keep in mind that my basis for comparison is a Galaxy S9. The Fairphone feels smoother and more responsive most of the time, but you do occasionally get freezes and lag spikes, mostly when you try to minimise an app that is currently loading something from my experience. Particularly heavy websites also slow it down sometimes, but pretty rarely.
And I wouldn’t really call the design “that bad”, I was listing off my issues with it, so it might have come across that way, but the majority of the time it works completely fine.
So on a scale of 1-5, responsiveness might be a 4?
About the design, I mean like a poorly-placed power button that is easily triggered (and then whatever confirmation procedure is in place can be performed by your pocket), or the sudden drainage of battery issue could be something about poor Quality Assurance when they pick batteries at the factory to put into the devices prior to shipping them out. Or worse, you could replace the battery and that effect could still happen!?
I had a Nexus 5 that would dial things, like even emergency #s (fortunately I don’t think it would actually do the call, just dial the numbers) while in my pocket - it may have had something to do with turning the screen on while a headphone jack was plugged into it. I replaced the OS for other reasons and that happened to solve that issue as well:-). So I would not turn a phone away for such a thing, especially if there is a software/configuration fix.
But responsiveness is as much due to hardware as software - e.g. if Firefox runs slow b/c it was compiled for and websites (even mobile) designed for higher-end specs.
Yeah, I’d say 4 is about right. And the power button is a bit recessed (it doubles as the fingerprint reader), so it’s really hard to press it accidentally. I genuinely have no idea how it could randomly turn off in my pocket. As for the battery, I’m pretty confident it’s a software issue. It’s only happened twice in the 4 months I’ve owned the phone and a restart fixed it both times.
Thanks for the additional feedback!:-) That does greatly reassure me.
Since you said the phone would come right back on immediately thereafter, it sounds to me like it does not seem connected to the battery issue.
Unless the battery issue wasn’t “really” a discharge but the sensor somehow being tricked into thinking that the battery was dying - in which case the phone likely shut down gracefully rather than risk a brown-out situation, but then when you powered it up later it realizes once again that it has battery.
But in a more normal scenario, if you have either tap-to-wake or if hitting the power button results in a screen prompt confirmation that does not require a fingerprint or PIN, and especially if you were walking or cycling or some such, then the screen likely rubbed up against your pocket lining and managed to cause the proper combination of actions to shut it off. It could not start up an app that way - that would need your login - but turning a device off usually requires lesser security.
Fortunately the latter may be possible to fix with a configuration setting or other software fix:-).
As a fellow FP5 user, I haven’t come across the issues you’ve mentioned - that said, I did install /e/os pretty much immediately, so perhaps that’s why.
I can’t comment on fairphone, but the Discord thing is likely not your phone, it’s Discord or something. The same happens to me randomly on a Pixel 6a.
With Firefox and unlock origin it’ll remove all the cruft from websites, and you can degoogle your phone, making it more private than it was in 2014 (unless you install apps that don’t respect your privacy)
Dumb phones don’t help you for tickets, boarding passes, tap to pay, etc. those things require strong security, not the latest tech. I’ve got a few teenage kids and even for them it’s not very practical to exist without a smartphone.
I’m starting to miss my iPhone 4
I loved my LG v10 and galaxy s5. Those phones just worked and worked great for a long time.
As long as you didn’t hold it wrong.
I got it long after the Antennagate problem got fixed. I believe iOS 4.3 was out when I first bought it.
Was Antennagate fixed? Or did people just learn not to hold it in the wrong place?
I thought it was about physical placement of the antenna, I’d be surprised if a software update fixed it.
It’s probably a mix of both.
I want to be able to pull up an 80% version of a website on my phone, and have a button to open the full website on my computer for when I get home.
If you use Firefox, you can transfer tabs between your phone and computer.
Firefox can do something like this with the “send tab to device”, not sure it is what you want
There is something about the Palm Pre or Jolla Sailfish OS that was so endearing back then. Devices that support it just don’t exist.
Sad thing is, WebOS still exists.
But it’s running on LG televisions
While its no excuse for them to do this, I run my LG tv with no internet access for it. And I honestly prefer a “dumb” tv anyway.
I would absolutely love a linux smartphone that didn’t suck.
I’ve already commented on other peoples comments but I’ll say it again.
Lineage OS exists and works well with F-droid
Sadly not compatible with everything, though. My phone is off the list ☹️
I can’t use my banking app on lineage and those wonderful folk at the bank have made it so that you cant confirm online purchases without.
You have to make it pass safetynet. Iirc there’s some magisk modules that let you do that
Well, if you can unlock the bootloader you can port it assuming the device manufacture is in compliance with the GPL.
Might be easier to just look into a supported device when the old one breaks.
Most people can port anything. And most of the ones who can have better uses for their time.
Yeah I don’t know what any of that means so I’m stuck with good ol’ daddy Samsung for now 😂
2014 phones also fit in my hand. I miss that size, you can’t even find them now.
I don’t want a dumb phone, I want a reliable PDA that doesn’t hallucinate it’s smarter than me. Older android on a current hardware could’ve been the best but it’s not supported anymore by major devs. As a consumer, I don’t understand why that’s the case. I’m not interested in their new design choice or whatever they market it with while bloating the shit out of it, I want a low-powered portable PC to edit docs and browsing the web without eating through 8gb and 6000mah like it’s nothing.
Some new competiton would be nice too. I remember when companies like Palm made their own competent OS. I wouldn’t even mind if Windows mobile made a reappareance. What do people even need anymore except a versatile browser and the ability to play games?
Communication, GPS, web browsing, camera, occasional use as a flashlight, media player, and a multifunction clock. And yeah that’s about it.
And make them with a high-rez multi-touch screen for old screens sucked ass at typing.
Screens suck at typing. Full stop.
It’s true, but it’s no longer a reality. Keyboards now can only happen in dumb phones or some luxury concept phones. It’s against a couple of current paradigms: making phones easily replaceable, incentivizing quick and short-term usage, having full control over UI\UX, maximizing interactive screen’s real estate, making sure you always look at the screen, and, besides that, engineering challenges that are kinda hard by themselves, but moreso they are in a conflict with banning replaceable batteries, holes for headphones and so on. We are out of luck.
Nevertheless, I’d probably do any stupid thing to get the modern version of something akin to that beast.
And I just want a small Android phone that fits in one hand.
The last one to be around iPhone 13 mini size is the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact from 2018. And if you want original iPhone SE size, then the “latest” one is the Samsung Galaxy Y S5360 from 2011.Oh what I would do to magically make my old Samsung S4 Mini usable again…
What are your thoughts on the Unihertz Jelly Star?
Shift5me is only thing below 5“ screen i found. Made 2019. 18mm higher and 13mm wider than iphone se.
Screen size stops being meaningful when you start comparing phones released years apart - the 5" Shift5me is 141,5 mm x 71 mm, phones around that width have seen screens all the way from the 4.3" of the 2011 Philips W920 to the 6.2" of the 2024 Samsung S24. For reference, the S4 mini was 4.3" at 124.6mm x 61.3mm.
But if that is an acceptable size of a phone, there are still few of those around, thankfully. It’s just about the limit of what I can comfortably handle at all (Pixel 4a currently)
I just want a small […] phone that fits in one hand.
How bloody small are your hands??
Mine are just average for a man’s, and the iPhone 15 Pro Max is eminently usable with just one hand.
I see you and me are looking for a similar phone. I want to be able to comfortably hold and use it with one hand.
As someone else mentioned Unihertz makes some smaller phones that aren’t limited in specs but some may be too small for my tastes. I am still looking to see what would be a good size since I want to be able to type on it with some comfort.
The S4 mini wasn’t quite that small, but typing comfort on small phones depends entirely on how comfortable you are with using swipe/gesture typing, as that’s realistically the only normal way to do it - any on-screen buttons are just too tiny to hit accurately unless you go landscape.
jfc not everyone is a man
I want a dumb phone that acts as a hotspot for my tablet and other devices.
You can already buy those. They seem to commonly be referred to in online stores as ‘pocket wifi’. Just stick a sim card in them and you can manage their settings through any connected device with a web browser.
You can’t use them as a phone though. And dumb phones that do somehow support tethering don’t do so at modern speeds.
Nope
companies will make them, it’s just capitalism. It’s a question of whether or not people will buy them.
Companies are already making “dumb phones” go buy one if you want one.
Not as far as “dumb” per se but I would accept “less smart” in exchange for physical buttons and a removable battery.
The removable battery is achievable by moving to Europe.
This is an interesting interpretation of “achievable.”
Nobody is discussion the level on convinience for it, here
Did you have a stroke
This gave a good chuckle, thanks :-)
I mostly just want a phone that doesn’t want to sell me on new ways to use my phone that I don’t already do. I don’t want a phone that’s constantly trying to get me to use voice search, or try out some AI feature, or a search engine, etc. I have a newer Samsung tablet, and by default holding the power button turned on voice search instead of the power off menu? I fucking hate that shit, it was thankfully changeable but it was annoying that I had to change it back. I literally never use voice search. I fucking hate talking to computers, I’m not talking to a machine unless it’s actually capable of feeling offended if I don’t
B-but if they don’t get better every year, the price will go down!
I’m not talking to a machine unless it’s actually capable of feeling offended if I don’t
lmao
Dumb phones don’t have all the gooey “track everything we do” goodness in the middle so I doubt it.
I want a real software dev team for linux phones. I don’t have programming knowledge, but I can pitch in for a reoccurring crowdfund to pay them. The Pinephone is nice hardware, but Pine64 has always said that they’re leaving the software up to the community.
The new ones would surely do that.
Exactly. If dumbphones made a comeback, companies would simply achieve it by presenting the user with a dumb UI while the data harvesting would still go on in the background.
I guess there’s the valid argument that you’d be doing less on your phone so there’d be less to spy on, but there’d still be spying, and much of it would simply be shifted to the user’s PC instead of a smartphone. Guess what, spying is rife there too.
The answer to stopping the spying is privacy laws.
I had the same take–less going on to exfiltrate.
Disclaimer: The below rant does not include things like healthcare where choice in the market is either not a thing or not possible. Lest someone think I am being absolutist. It is purely railing against the average consumer widget, not grandmas oxygen tank refills.
That depends on how many people want them.
Companies will make, or stop making/doing, nearly anything if the money for doing it goes away. But not enough people want “dumbphones” bad enough to stop buying “smartphones”.
Just like not enough people want small phones to stop buying the big ones. Or not enough people want the price of Netflix to go down to stop paying for Netflix, etc. Consumers in general need to learn the power of and build up the mental discipline to do without when the available options aren’t what they want. Apple, Google, etc can’t force you to buy it from them after all.
Companies prey on the inability of the consumer to go without when they find the terms of the deal distasteful to great success. Large chunks of every companies marketing department think about nothing else.
The real “sin” in all of this is there not being enough smaller players around to fill those smaller segments, because we kept buying from the company that bought up all of the competition years ago despite finding those practices distasteful.
Companies, and politicians, have figured out that the average majority is all bark and no bite. And the average majority would be wise to start to figure that out.
People want these to avoid watching ads and being a guinea pig for their own money.
If something like Maemo was a thing today, would be different.
So maybe they could just…not use apps that bombard them with ads? How hard is that?
I used a nokia dumbphone and it was awful. Not awful due do a lack of features, but awful due to how poorly those features are implemented. Kaios is teal garbage.
But the form factor was lovely, and physical buttons are so much more precise and comfortable to use than a touch screen.
The phone that I really want is a small smartphone with physical buttons for typing and navigation. As far as I am aware that is something that is not made these days.
Sometimes I miss my blackberry because it had a keyboard and would read the name of who was texting me as an alert. It also fit in my pocket a lot better and the screen never cracked.
Wish they’d make a new model of that phone. I’d consider getting one if they could manage to not fuck it up with unnecessary features.
I had the HTC Desire Z back in the day, with a full qwerty keyboard underneath the screen. It was awesome to write on, but it lacked performance.
I’d like a smart phone with the latest Android, a great camera, and a color e-ink display. I’ve yet to find one.
I don’t understand how you are supposed to look at the photos taken with the great camera on an e-ink display?
dump phone with GPS and google login :v
And email. And whatsapp. And banking. And NFC payments. And…
i just recently found my dumbphone (samsung intensity 2) from right before I got a glowiephone. It has access to email, apps for facebook, myspace, and twitter, and a web browser plus full slideout keyboard. So whatsapp, banking, and NFC shouldn’t be difficult at all. Only issue is that unless the bank makes a dumbphone compatible version of their webbed sight they’d need to make a unique app for every manufacturor ecosystem instead of the relative ease of one android and ios app to rule them all. Or have an API for the manufacturors to make their own doggone apps.
