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The Featurephone Experiment 2024-02-05
featurephone

Jr and I have spent the last year paring down our smartphone usage. This last December, we found we were using the phones about 30 minutes a day. When I realized last month that Jr's phone would stop getting security patches in August of this year, I was not looking forward to dropping another $500-$800 on a phone that we're trying our best to not use.

So I moved to a featurephone.

I have a few basic needs:

  • Need to be able to play one album to wired speakers: I run sound for the dance school
  • Group texting: surprisingly, this is still an uncommon feature in 2024
  • Rudimentary maps app I can use for walking
  • Calendar with alarms that syncs to some online service
  • Allows tethering my laptop
  • Battery lasts a full day

Nokia 2780

Initially, I tried the Nokia 2780. This is a flip phone, running KaiOS, a browser-based mobile operating system.

Checklist:

  • Play one album to wired speakers
  • Group texting
  • Maps for walking
  • Calendar with alarms
  • Allows tethering my laptop
  • Battery lasts a full day

Other neat features:

  • $70
  • Camera with flash and geotagged photos (remembers where you were when you took it)
  • Displays photos sent over SMS
  • Email client, synced to Google Mail
  • Possible to write JavaScript apps for things like playing ebooks
  • Alarm clock

Bummers:

  • USB C charging port is still directional and won't charge in one orientation of the cable
  • Dings for dumb reasons like "battery is full", with no clear way to turn that off
  • Music player won't play to wired speakers (but wired headphones are okay: I don't understand how they did this)
  • JavaScript apps cannot use "native" controls: you have to scroll a cursor around with the d-pad
  • Larger than flip phones used to be (but still smaller than a smartphone)
  • Predictive text input makes you send "G will be there" instead of "I will be there", unless you're vigilant
  • Some built-in apps, and all store-installed apps, have ads
  • Google is all over the shortcuts, even when it doesn't make sense
  • OS will probably never be updated

Jr wound up taking this device, and seems to be fairly happy with it. For me, it was pretty good, but I felt like it could be better.

Light Phone 2

This is actually running Android with a custom front-end for displaying on a small e-ink screen. You can hack it to run any Android app, apparently. I'm going to try hard not to do this.

Checklist:

  • Play one album to wired speakers
  • Group texting
  • Maps for walking
  • Calendar with alarms
  • Allows tethering my laptop
  • Battery lasts a full day

Other neat features:

  • Will auto-forward MMS attachments to your email
  • Small: fits in my jeans watch pocket
  • E-ink display looks cool
  • Lots of the setup you do is actually on a web page you access with your computer
  • Alarm clock
  • Podcasts built into the core OS
  • Allows typing some Latin diacriticals like ñ and ç
  • Gets regular updates: seems like about 2 updates per month!

Bummers:

  • $300
  • USB Micro charging adapter
  • Music is organized as a flat list of every song you added
  • Percent button on calculator makes no sense to me
  • Sends notification tone when it pairs to Bluetooth or regains signal
  • Does not sync messages over bluetooth to the car
  • Does not sync contacts over bluetooth to the car
  • You have to turn it on to see if you have any notifications
  • No camera
  • No ability to display images

Where Things Stand

Jr has the Nokia 2780 and so far likes it. I suspected this would happen: it feels more "fun" somehow, and the camera is a big deal.

I'm enjoying the Light Phone 2. It checks all my boxes, and... that's about all there is. $300 feels like a lot, but if I can keep it for 2 years, I'll be spending the same amount per year as I did on smartphones. If I can keep it for 5 years, it will be much cheaper.

I've also started tossing an old digital point-and-shoot camera in my bag if I think I might want to take photos. It turns out I don't take many photos these days, now that Jr is off at college.


More interesting to me is that I still need a smartphone. Or at least, I still need something that can run Android apps. Specifically, for:

  • Depositing checks
  • Authention app for work (!)

That's actually all: everything else I need, I can run in a web browser. But they won't let me deposit checks with a browser.

I can run Android apps on a Chromebook, so that's what I'm doing. I'm switching over to my kid's Chromebook, which has a better camera than the 8-year-old one I've been using: this will help with video calls. It's also smaller, lighter, and has a newer battery, so it's a bit of an upgrade. It can still run Linux, too.

While I was messing around, I set up the Plex app, so I have some stuff to watch on my next train trip.

Will this stick? I guess only time will tell!