I don’t have a smartphone, and use a hand-me-down dumb phone with very basic features. I have little need for a smart phone, as I have lived 40 years without one, and stuff like learning how to drive to places still works the same as it always did. Also, I’m poor and cheap, and using a smart phone would be prohibitively expensive (my phone bill now is like 50 USD per year).
No cell phone for me. We still have a land line, (only because they stopped charging us for it a few years ago, just dropped it from our bill!) and hubby has a smart phone. I do have an iPad mini with a free texting client, so no phone plan. It works all over the world and fully meets my needs. It’d be hard to justify a second cell phone and phone plan expense as we just wouldn’t use it enough.
I have a smart phone, the little conveniences of it are fantastic, nothing like having a portable computer, but I wouldn’t if I didn’t use AT&T/Cricket wireless. Too expensive otherwise. With my service its $40 a month for unlimited and you buy the phone up front, very cheap (mine was $50 about 4 years ago) and I still have the same one, if you know how to modify your phone a little bit (jailbreak it/root), you can make it run very fast, and efficiently. I replace the battery every two years to keep it holding maximum charge. Each battery cost me $4.50 on ebay for OEM. I keep it in a rugged case with a screen shield on it too, I replace those once a year ($5 gets you a pack of 6).
The point is, it is possible and you definitely can have a smart phone that works well, very cheaply.
I think mine is “smart”, but I’m not smart enough to work it. I just use it to take pictures of my dogs and make an occasional long-distance call. No internet, no text.
Oh, and I have it play music in the car with the broken radio.
I have to say I’m surprised at how many of us have flips. Go us! 
I had a Galaxy smartphone for a week or two. I didn’t like so I took it back to the shop. They gave me a Nokia with no camera and five hundred riyals. I load it with three hundred riyals a month.
I have a flip phone for talk + text, but I also have an old iPhone 4 that I bought off a friend who was upgrading a couple years ago. I don’t count that as a “phone” because I can’t make calls with it: I use it for music and WiFi.
I currently have my first ever smart phone and I hope to ditch it soon and go back to a flip. go ahead, mock me, but I want something I can TALK to people on without hanging up accidentally all the time. :mad:
Just so you know, there is a feasible way now to have your cake and eat it too.
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Buy one of the better rated budget Android smartphones for cash. I personally have the Moto G5 Plus, as wirecutter rates it highly. I paid $180 for mine.
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Keep doing what you are doing with the pay as you go. Some of those plans allow you to use any old unlocked phone. You won’t have data service for $100 a year, but…
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You don’t need data service on a smartphone for it to still be highly useful. At your house or at work, it can use the company wifi. While you are in your car, the GPS will still work, and you can download the maps for your city onto the phone in google maps so that the navigation will work without a data connection.
There are a number of ‘apps’ that do various things there is no PC alternative for. Also, it’s extremely useful to have a smartphone so you can read books or browse SDMB from the toilet or from bed like I do. I use mine to play audiobooks while I am on long car trips, it makes them far more endurable.
Jackie, you can change the settings on the phone so that the touchscreen won’t be active during a call, and that hangup only happens if you press the power button. Or use a headset. Literally billions of people have a smartphone now, and there are lots of solutions to this (common) problem…
I’m bu no means a fan of always getting the latest and greatest, but a smartphone is actually very useful in many practical ways.
I don’t do social media or web browsing on my phone, but…
- Google maps, directions - it can be used as a GPS device.
- I sometimes travel by train and I can read books on my phone during the journey very comfortably.
- Quick and easy access to train and bus timetables.
- Useful for shopping lists and notes. I keep all my shopping lists on my phone.
- I take photos or videos occasionally.
- I can access my bank accounts while I’m out, if necessary.
- WhatsApp is very much better for text conversations than SMS. Also for easy, good quality international phone calls, basically free.
- Fancy scientific calculator in my pocket.
- Etc.
I would never go back to a flip phone.
Just to add: I have a cheap Android phone that I bought for cash, and pay-as-you-go.
I have a basic cell phone (so called “Obama Phones”). Can’t afford a Smart Phone and don’t have a compelling need. 56, on disability.
They are wonderful devices.
I have a phone that’s further down the scale from a flip phone, meaning the screen is even tinier as all the buttons and the screen are packed together on one side of the phone. I don’t currently have service - I keep a $10 prepaid card in my car and keep it plugged in. I’ve gone years and years now without having anything happen that I would feel it necessary to have a cell phone for. It was different when I was traveling more often, but now I’m rarely away from home, rarely going any further than my workplace 10 miles away. I keep in touch with my friends on Facebook, and have no compelling interest in ad hoc get-togethers that would need to be arranged on more direct communication methods. If someone posts an event ahead of time on Facebook, then I can plan around it.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that my phone actually doesn’t work anymore since it’s a very old one and it’s with AT&T. I’m not sure exactly what I should do about it. I haven’t spent any money at all on communications equipment since I bought that $10 prepaid card, and I’m not sure AT&T would just give me an upgraded phone because I have the potential to use their pay-as-you-go service.
I’ve also never sent a text message in my life. I’m 36.
Flip phone, $15 a month. The only time I have it turned on is in emergencies or when I’m traveling. I’m with the guy earlier who said he likes to be unreachable. I usually don’t need to be reachable and I’m not interested in anybody’s everyday shit.
Only thing I wish I had a smartphone for is the occasional pic, and obviously texting is faster. But neither is worth the extra money.
I actually am in possession of an iPhone - my work switched from a physical token to an app to authenticate access to its VPN, so they ended up giving me one. No phone plan though, it just uses my home wifi or hotel wifi if I’m traveling. It stays in the case with my laptop.
I have a credit balance of around $700 in my wireless account which kind of pisses me off, because I assume the only thing I’d be able to use it for is to buy a smartphone
Nothing’s free. If the wireless company credited you $700, you’ve paid at least $700 over the years to them in excess of market rates for the service you received. You might as well use the credit to get the latest, fanciest iphone.
I just have a basic flip phone. It can take photos, but I have never figured out how to get them off the phone.
For the record, I got my first computer 35 years ago (an original IBM-PC) and have been using email for nearly 33 years, so not exactly a luddite.
I have a smart-ish Tracphone but I don’t use it for anything but making and taking phone calls. I have an iPad that I have with me almost all the time and use for Internet and taking photos.
I am very bad at having my phone with me. If someone leaves a message or text on it, I may not see it for days.
My family knows email is the easiest, fastest way to get a message to me.
I guess it’s a matter of opinion if I have a smart phone or not. Technically I do, but I mostly just use it as a basic cell phone, and I only have it because my carrier gave it to me free when they were getting ready to turn off CDMA, thus rendering my beloved Motorola flip phone useless. It’s a Samsung J3 which is apparently pretty basic, but it looks fine to me and was nice to get for free even though I haven’t had a contract with the carrier in years.
Since I don’t really need a smart phone, I just kept it on my basic cheap voice plan, and have data turned off to prevent accidental use. It’s a nice gadget, though, and it’s fun to play with over WiFi. I recently enabled email on it, which turned out to be a rather nice feature. The phone is usually nearby when I’m puttering around the house and it’s nice to get instant notification of an email even when I’m not at the computer. But I’d never pay for the privilege of getting that notification over cellular data service. Emails just aren’t that important in my retired life.
I’m still using my little brick “Obamaphone”. I get 300 minutes free every month. If I want more I can buy them but I’ve never once in the past three years used them all. I got a flyer letting me know I can trade it in for a smart phone but I have to buy a data package and I just don’t see the point.
Why do you consider people not having smartphones something to celebrate? 
Why not? It’s like being members of an exclusive club that pretty much means nothing.