anyone go back to a dumbphone from a smartphone?

[tortillasoup]

You weren't looking too hard... Also smartphones weren't too common in the U.S. mostly a Euro/Japan thing.

 

[lxskllr]

I don't have a phone at all. I look every so often, but it doesn't go past looking at this point. Phones I like are expensive, and plans cost more than they're worth to me.

 

[Imp]

Never went... Going to keep it that way. My dumb phone costs $115 per year pre-paid and I never use it all up.

I'm using a 4 year old phone. It's been dropped so many times, I lost count, and it still works. No smartphone except maybe a Blackberry would survive that -- because of the smaller glass with keyboard, not build quality.

 

[shortylickens]

i was thinking of getting a tablet and one of those rugged clamshells.
Seems like i'd rather check email and websites on a big screen. But that also means having multiple devices just to do basic tasks.


In any case, I will never again get a 5 inch phone. Dont need all that screen for my stuff. Serious work is still done on a computer. So I can get by with a 4.3 inch model.

 

[Kaido]

I would like to for the sole reason that I miss my flip phone. I loved flip-to-answer

But, I also hate carrying two devices. I had to do that at a previous job and it was super annoying. My smartphone is indispensable. I use it as a camera more than anything else these days, plus onboard editing via Camera+ & other apps is very nice. Plus I can't live without my organizational apps like Any.Do, Agenda Calendar, The Hit List, Evernote, timers via Clock, and Dropbox. And having all of my audiobooks on my phone for my hour+ daily commute. etc. etc. etc.

 

[Kaido]

I don't have a phone at all. I look every so often, but it doesn't go past looking at this point. Phones I like are expensive, and plans cost more than they're worth to me.

They are expensive. When I was freelance, I had a large amount of minutes & data for work & personal use. When I went back to a regular job, I dropped the smartphone & saved so much money that I could literally afford another car. The money saved paid for my Kia lease every month :biggrin:

I would kind of like to go back to a combination of a flipphone and a 7" iPad Mini or something, but I do a lot more texting than voice calling (weirdly enough, since I always thought texting was stupid, but it's so much more efficient for communication a lot of times), so it's nice to have that on a pocket-sized device, along with my camera, email, etc.

 

[lxskllr]

They are expensive. When I was freelance, I had a large amount of minutes & data for work & personal use. When I went back to a regular job, I dropped the smartphone & saved so much money that I could literally afford another car. The money saved paid for my Kia lease every month :biggrin:

I would kind of like to go back to a combination of a flipphone and a 7" iPad Mini or something, but I do a lot more texting than voice calling (weirdly enough, since I always thought texting was stupid, but it's so much more efficient for communication a lot of times), so it's nice to have that on a pocket-sized device, along with my camera, email, etc.

I really like the looks of this, but the price is ambiguous, and it doesn't exist yet.

http://neo900.org/#main

 

[CuriousMike]

but now I see how they turn people into asocial zombies.

I'm waiting for a sociologist / psychologist to write a book about this in the near future.

It's incredible how technology, particularly some mobile related, can affect our attention spans / compulsive behaviours so openly and quicly.

 

[Fritzo]

Not a chance. I can do 10000% more things with a smartphone. It's like an electronic pocket knife.

 

[BUTCH1]

Not a chance. I can do 10000% more things with a smartphone. It's like an electronic pocket knife.

And I'd bet 99999% don't get used except zombie destruction games.

 

[Kaido]

I'm waiting for a sociologist / psychologist to write a book about this in the near future.

It's incredible how technology, particularly some mobile related, can affect our attention spans / compulsive behaviours so openly and quicly.

Vintage rebuttal:

http://cdn.themetapicture.com/media/funny-train-newspaper-people-reading.jpg

 

[Wyndru]

oh lookie another person worried about how they look using a smartphone, news flash no one cares whether it's a 90's brick or a new phone, either way it's a phone

 

[Staples]

If the plans were half the price or less I'd consider it but the plans I have seen are still expensive.

 

[Leyawiin]

Still using an eight year old Kyocera dumb phone with Virgin Mobile. Slips in my pocket, charge lasts for a week, costs me $80 a year. I don't talk on it much and can wait until I get home to go online.

 

[RossMAN]

If the plans were half the price or less I'd consider it but the plans I have seen are still expensive.

T-Mobile and PagePlus have some awesome plans if you need mostly minutes, few texts and zero data.

 

[bearxor]

I don't recall seeing smart phones in 2002.

My first smart phone was the Toshiba 2032SP. But there were smart phones even before that, like the Kyocera 6035. I just didn't like Palm OS so I jumped on the Windows CE bandwagon.

 

[John Connor]

Hmm, when I think smartphone I think Internet capability.

 

[mikeymikec]

but now I see how they turn people into asocial zombies. Cannot stand being in a room with people all glued to their phones.

While I agree with this to some extent, on the other hand, were such people very sociable before smartphones? Are we talking about a family gathering or a waiting room or a circle of friends, etc.?

 

[Red Squirrel]

With how widespread they are I'm surprised we don't have more choices, for very cheap ones. The Nexus 4 was a good start though, but you pretty much had to be ready to hit submit within the 5 minute time span that there was stock. So it was not exactly, easily obtainable. I got lucky and got in the 2nd time they came out.

I guess the companies just like to milk the fact that they are subsidized by plans and people fall for that thinking it's cheaper. There's also not enough players, because of all the patent wars. There's basically Samsung and Apple. It's pretty hard to make a hand held device with a touch screen without infringing on some patent, so nobody is doing it but the big guys with enough lawyers.

 

[ra1nman]

If it weren't for the $12 plan on page plus, I was fine with my old Motorola slider and carrying an ipod touch when I'm near Wi-Fi.

 

[pontifex]

i never had a true smartphone - closest was a LG Dare, but I went back to a more basic flip phone. I have no need for a smartphone and I don't want to pay the exorbitant prices for smartphone service (especially since I would barely use it). Hell, I barely use my dumb flip phone. I also use Page Plus wireless for prepaid minutes (the $10 for 100 minutes or about $30-40 a year compared to verizon's lowest service which was like $540 a year) and I don't even use that much. I don't text at all either.

My last phone was a Samsung convoy. that started having problems so i went to ebay and bought a like new Motorola Razr (the original one from like 2003) for like $20.

I don't know if I would really want a smartphone though. they are too big, pretty much every touch screen sucks, especially if the screen is small (I have big hands which doesn't help). The cost for service is a huge turnoff as well. Maybe if I made more money - but again, i would need to have a use for one and currently I don't.

 

[ultimatebob]

I'm waiting for a sociologist / psychologist to write a book about this in the near future.

It's incredible how technology, particularly some mobile related, can affect our attention spans / compulsive behaviours so openly and quicly.

I'm sure that the person writing it will be done... As soon as they beat the next level of Candy Crush

 

[BUTCH1]

Another reason a dumbphone is still a good idea, with no keyboard texting is close to impossible when driving, heck it's so time-consuming even when I'm not driving I'd rather just call the person who text's me instead..

 

[bearxor]

Hmm, when I think smartphone I think Internet capability.

All those phones had internet capability. On the Toshiba, it was a bit funny, as you had to basically dial in to the internet whenever you wanted to do something, kind of like a dial up modem.

It was slow but, at the time, Sprint had the fastest network around since they were 100% digital 1xRTT as opposed to Verizon which had large pockets of analog.

Sprint jumped on data services pretty early. I was using mobile web services on Sprint as early as 1999 to navigate text menus to get news and stuff. But I wouldn't call something like the Qualcomm 2760 a smart phone.

 

[lxskllr]

I'd love to get an ultracheap internet package that basically gave dialup performance. That would be perfect for most of my uses.