Technology

All of that, plus the benefits of having a good pocket camera to carry around - spontaneous photography is my thing and having a good camera phone solves that equation nicely.

And before anyone says "get a real camera", I have real cameras and there's no way they can be carried in my pocket the same way a smartphone does lol. That and the smaller they get, the further image quality worsens to the point where you might just use a (good camera) phone instead.

I grew up with dumb phones, and you couldn't pay me enough to go back to using them - they suck!

navigation, and living in a country where it's really hard to find books

There really isn’t anything I couldn’t replace my phone with a tablet that stays in the house for, and it has been a growing thought to switch back to a dumb phone.

I for one would go flip from Japan, Korean, manufactured phone. That could tether, mini tablet for maps or email or lemmy

Camera is probably the first obstacle. I've got a kid, and I really want to have good documentation of her growing up. If there were a dumbphone with a legit camera, that'd be a big deal for me.

After that, probably maps is the next most important thing that I want an actual smart phone for. I remember getting my first smart phone, and probably the main thing I was excited about was always being able to navigate directly to where I wanted to go.

Almost everything else is tertiary to my needs.

MFA is the biggest hurdle. I literally could not do my job without it.

My job, mostly.

I use Uptime Robot to tell me if anything goes wrong, and I need to be able to VPN into my work network and restart services if they go down. A flip phone can’t do that.

I am more curious about this section:

bureaucracy or banking apps force me to use it

Does it actually happen? How so? I never had any bank or anything else force me to use a phone, so I am having hard time imagining that. So I am genuinely curious about this portion of your message.

All I really need is calls, sms, a solid browser and some more robost messaging apps like signal and matrix/element - I'm a prime candidate for PostmarketOS if we ever get a stable piece of hardware. I have an old oneplus 6 that I've played with it on, its so close. If a flip phone could master that today, sure

I do use tap to pay, but meh I dont think I would miss it and android auto in my car could easily just be a bluetooth audio connection

I know exactly what I need my phone for: music, maps, banking, messaging, books and sometimes traveling. Anything else I have is a distraction that I'm addicted to have.

You know what keeps me from binning it? The FOMO, and not being able to hold conversations with friends and coworkers because I'm would not be tuned to the latest trends and happenings, and that sucks.

I would not give up the smartphone for a dumb phone, primarily for the superior security and privacy smartphones provide that dumb phones just do not have technology for.

This conversation has a tone of settling for inferior technology to do the work a well-designed smartphone experience should.

The smartphone can be made pretty "dumb" - the user experience has more to do with the software (apps) added to it than the hardware (the smartphone) itself.

Aside from the apps the platform bundles, I only have Signal (for text and voice), email, a browser, calendar, a note taking app and a FOSS music player. I have disabled all sound and visual notifications and removed all apps off the main screen.

Of late, I've moved the SIM-card onto a secondary phone that resides in my bag, which is only switched-on for navigation or if I need WiFi in a snap.

It has not always been this way for me and I am sure my setup will continue to evolve as my needs change.

nothing would stop me and honestly if I could find a decent and new one similar to my old Sprint/Nokia phone from like 2001 I'd use it. I can't stand smart phones, I never liked them.

Eh, I see no reason to switch to a dumb phone, because I don't think I'm that bad with my current phone. My main User profile on GrapheneOS is pretty minimal when it comes to apps, it's mostly messaging, banking, navigation, workout and music (I should probably move Lemmy and Pixelfed to a different profile, but they both have pretty little potential for scrolling for too long since the new content is naturally limited).
The only game on this profile is the one I'm developing as a hobby project lol

All the annoying Apps (Secondary Email, Amazon, Aliexpress, Linkedin, Smartlife, Grocery store coupon apps etc) are banished to a secondary profile that has no permission to run in the background or send any notifications.

I think it definitely depends on the persons needs. I use my phone for maps when I am going somewhere I am unfamiliar with. I use it for pod casts and audio books all the time. I use it for checking my bank account. Could I use something else to do these? Sure, but do I have access to all of the secondary devices to accomplish all of the above, not always. So yeah, the smart phone did become the catch all for a ton of daily processes, and I don’t have to carry 10 devices anymore.

what would need to change for you to actually give a flip phone a try?

For me to start using my phone as the main way of my computing needs and entertainment needs. Which I don't. I only use it to send messages and read when my laptop is not in my hands. So I essentially have a not-so-smartphone, not-so-dumbphone.

Maps is a big one

The apps 100%

The one reason I have a nice, relatively new phone is that I want a fairly large, OLED screen for reading after dark. Yeah, I use it for a bunch of other stuff, but I wouldn't really miss any of those. The only thing I really need is the ability to make it look like text is floating in the dark over my head in bed.

I don't use a smartphone enough to worry about it. If I am using my phone, most of the time it's either Anki, Google Maps, or, like you mention, banking/government stuff.

Texting via SMS (or whatever it is these days) isn't really a thing in Japan, either, which makes things more difficult especially as I despise talking on the phone. If, for example, I'm at the supermarket and wife remembers something she needs, getting that message is good

Availability. There fucking aren't any.

well functioning linux phone

I simply wouldn't. A dumbphone does mostly the things I don't use a phone for.

And I don't mean fortnite and tickytocks, I've grown up through (most) of the history of mobile phones, I started with my mothers old Nokia 2110 back in like... 1998? I remember how awesome it was to finally have a phone, then to be able to get the bus schedules with the painfully slow WAP connection so I didn't have to call home, then to have navigation, replace the mp3 player, camera, and eventually even mostly my laptop.

I want to have a datapad with access to all the devices and information in my pocket at all times. If I need it to do something, I know there's an app for it probably. It's awesome.

I'd really prefer that the datapad wouldn't then leech all of my information in return, though.
Oh, and bring back physical keyboards. I'd give my left nut for an HTC Desire Z with 2025 hardware.

I’m mostly using my phone as an all in one multimedia device I can fit in my pocket.

I don’t see the flip phone as a good replacement for this kind of use. It wasn’t back in those days either. We used dedicated MP3 players or portable radio for music listening for example.

2 factor authentication

I dint do calls often at all, so a flip/dumb phone doesn't appeal to me much. However, i have been very tempted to upgrade my existing smart watch to one with LTE connectivity and skip the smart phone completely.

The Apple watch, for instance, with LTE can do maps/directions, calls, texts, etc., without needing a smartphone near by. It would be much less to carry, less distractions, and way more convenient.

The big thing it can't currently do, however, is MFA for my job. It can do Authy and many others, but the one we require doesn't work, I've tried many times, so I'm stuck carrying a smartphone around if I want to remain employed.

Really only a handful of things:

1. navigation while traveling - don't need it much, if at all at home, but I travel often enough for work that losing that capability would be painful.

2. MFA - authenticator apps are the most convenient way to do MFA. SMS/email are terrible options for this and should only be used if there is absolutely no other option.

3. Access to the internet while away from home, both while traveling and while out and about

4. Music playback in the car

5. Communication - most of my friends don't use SMS/voice to talk, instead preferring Discord or Signal

Basically everything else I do on my phone could be done from a more proper computer with minimal inconvenience.

My first cell phone was a flip phone, and I'm not gonna lie, I've considered revisiting my teenage days again and getting one. But I feel like, right now, my smartphone use is very light.

I avoid Meta apps, I don't play mobile games, my biggest vice was reddit which has now become a shithole of bots and censorship so I don't go on there anymore. I read the news on here, chat a little on Discord, check my birdfeeder and that's pretty much it besides occasional use of google maps as needed.

On top of that, this phone is from 2018 so its battery life these days is not great. I think that helps too.

Maybe for those hesitating to get a dumb phone, perhaps start with an older smartphone to whittle your time down?

Literally just having a hotspot built in is keeping me on android. The lappy goes where I go, and that means as long as I have internet access I'm as connected as I could ever want to be.

Basically everyone has wifi, usually available after. I might just go out and get an unlocked dumbphone this week honestly.

Edit: yes I know about the mp02, its on the wishlist. I haven't had a job in over a year so I won't be getting it yet.