I wonder if this is similar to the recent rage for records and other physical media, or if there’s something else going on.
That phone in the 2nd photo is pretty much the one I have. Works great. Cost me $25. If I want the internet, I have a laptop.
And while sales figures are hard to come by, one report said that global purchases of dumbphones were due to hit one billion units last year, up from 400 million in 2019. This compares to worldwide sales of 1.4 billion smart phones last year, following a 12.5% decline in 2020.
I can think of reasons for this that don’t require abandoning smartphones. Such as:
People in developing nations going from not being able to afford a phone at all to being able to afford a dumbphone but not a smart one.
People with 3G dumbphones that they have clung to with white nuckles finally having to replace them (with new dumbphones) as 3G networks are switched off.
People who concider their current smartphone to be good enough for several years instead of the old cycle of getting a new phone every year or two.
My mom would have gotten one of these, if they were available at the stores she went to. She’s old, and old-fashioned, and simply doesn’t want the more complicated device.
Though, now that she does have a smart phone, she has in fact made a lot of use of features that a dumb phone wouldn’t have had. Such as an app that her siblings have been using for group conversations, and the voice assistant for setting a timer.
I don’t know about “latest trend”. The magazine The Week had an article about this before the pandemic - it pointed out certain celebrities who where seen with plain cell phones (PCF).
I can see this for someone who wants a phone that is easy to carry, cheap to replace, and, as the BBC article pointed out, has a longer batter life.
On the the other hand, I still want the smart phone convenience of paying by phone, banking with an app, and getting email . Maybe there will eventually be semi-smart phones that can be carried as PCF and used to pay - and plugged into a docking station at home to provide the other functionality of a smart phone.
Mine’s a Nokia 1112
Mmmmm. Dingy !
When it dies, i will get a smart phone. 'Til then it’ll have to do.
So when your provider stops supporting phones below 4G LTE, you will pretend to get calls on it up until the phone physically stops turning on?
That counts as the 'phone dying !
I don’t think I’ll tell my friend about this. She complained long and loud about smart phones. But her service kept cutting out. So, she and her husband trekked to a store and did the upgrade. For the first time ever, she started texting last month. She refused to do so before, even though it would no longer cost her each time. I ended up having to teach old dogs old tricks. After a couple of them, I explained how she could google how to do things and that there are demonstrations on YouTube. She is officially having a blast with it.
My husband and I don’t text. Our phones are used strictly for voice. I had to get rid of my 3G phone last year when it stopped working at our permanent campsite. I bought an Alcatel prepaid flip phone at Walmart for $42. It is data capable but I don’t have a data plan on my account. It works for me!
I’m old-fashioned in a lot of ways, but smart phones are the coolest technology we have since we didn’t get flying cars.
A smartphone is a fully functional computer that fits in your pocket and is also a camera, flashlight, GPS navigator, and well, a phone.
The computer part is very useful for many things up whether it be email, weather, restaurant info and menus, settling a bet, looking at how-to videos, etc. There are so many uses for a pocket computer every day.
The only real disadvantage of smart phones is they need a good data plan to be truly useful on the go, but companies like Visible Wireless will give you unlimited for $40 a month, or with limited data you can get plans for $25 a month. Especially if you give up your landline it’s a good deal.
Just thought of something. It is easier to use a Plain Cell Phone one-handed.
Sounds like a future movie trope - the hero has the villain cornered, then puts his gun down so both hands are free to call for backup on a smart phone…
A 4G Nokia 3310, or other non-“smart” phone, will do plenty of texting, o maybe there was some other reason your friend splurged on a smart phone.
I think that’s more a function of the size of your hands and the size of the phone.
Or the hero just says, “Hey, Siri, activate ‘the villain is cornered’ shortcut,” and the smartphone runs the shortcut which automatically dials 911, starts the phone video camera recording, and texts his partner that he needs backup which includes a map of his precise location.
And of course it starts playing his “I have the villain cornered” playlist.
much harder to type on an old T9 keypad
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Oh lawdy yes, my mom got one of those dumb phones and kinda wanted to figure out texting once I showed her how fun it can be just to exchange small snippets of info that don’t really NEED a full call to impart. However, it has been since oh…2006 or so? since I’ve had to try to T9 text and it is FUCKING ANNOYING and I had flashbacks to how much I hated texting back then. Give me a goddamned proper keyboard or miss me with that keypad shit. It was especially galling since a low end smartphone would have cost maybe an extra fifty bucks (and trust me, mom can afford it) and the utility would have been a million times greater but no.
I get it though, a lot of people work in places where cameras aren’t allowed and whatnot so being able to get a phone they can take to work is imperative but I really wish people would stop acting like smartphones are useless. Because every dumb phone user I know of is more than happy to beg a smartphone user to look up a restaurant or an address or check the weather forecast on a trip for them. And that disingenuous “I don’t NEED to do any of THAT!” schtick is tired. If you don’t know what a smartphone can bring to your life and are unwilling to expend the mental energy to find out then just say so and stop acting like being a Luddite is somehow a virtue. It’s not. And 5G is miles better than 3G and nobody ELSE wants their phone bills to go up because a small and stubborn group of people insist on using outdated tech and expect mobile carriers to keep antiquated networks running just so they don’t need to upgrade their phones. I mean, really, you might just love your 1910 horseless carriage but you still can’t take it on the freeway since its top speed is about 30mph and nobody thinks there should be a dedicated lane on every freeway to accomodate slow old cars.
Here’s a post that is appropriate to this discussion.
Hah - quite topical indeed - I missed this thread.
In the US, the demand is (I suspect) largely fueled by senior citizens who simply cannot see the need for such, or couldn’t manage to learn how to use a smartphone. My MIL (and FIL) fall into that category.
The carriers have almost entirely gotten away from providing support for such basic phones. Not that you can’t get, and use, them, but it’s quite literally impossible (from my research) to go with a big carrier and get a basic talk-and-text plan with little to no data. AND, even the “dumb phones” (somewhat humorously called “feature phones”) have apps that you can use that chew up data; I disabled data on MIL’s new phone because we don’t believe she’d use the features, but I was worried that she might activate something by mistake. I don’t believe either parent would be able to use a smartphone, just from what I’ve seen watching them use a real computer.
Both my kids had dumb phones until they graduated high school - to be fair, the youngest did so in 2015. I think I’d do the same right now, even though this would be yet another reason for them to be viewed as outcasts.
Texting: yeah, that’s a huge pain in the neck from a dumbphone. My last such actually had a keyboard built in, which I loved. I think it was the LG ENV but there were a number of models that had keyboards around then. Mine had the ability to turn on cell-based navigation for an extra fee, which was kind of cool, though a couple trips where we tried to use that, there was no cell signal (think very rural WV, or AZ).
I don’t think anything like that is made anymore, which is a pity. My father-in-law is deaf enough that he cannot hear a regular cell phone, and his vision isn’t great which means a dumbphone’s texting wouldn’t work well either, but a keyboard-based version just might work.
Cameras: Are there ANY phones made any more, even dumbphones, that do not come with built-in cameras? It’s actually a real issue around here (DC metro area), as so many people work in secured facilities where those are not permitted. The one time I visited such a place, I had to leave my phone (and my Fitbit) in a locker outside the office.
Us: Well, I can make an argument that my spouse and I genuinely need our smartphones. We both work in IT, and can get work emails on our phones, plus if we need to travel for work, the phone is extremely useful in handling the logistics. For a lot of people, a smartphone is literally their only internet access, as well.
Plain cell phones are cheap and compact. They are not for high-res photography, surfing the 'net and watching movies, or video games (the Nokia 3310 still has Snake, though. And yes it does have a camera, Internet, Bluetooth, radio, and a music/video player. A really really cheap phone might not have those but I don’t know the names of the models off the top of my head; searching online reveals quite a few models, like the Light Phone II)