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Ask HN: What is the best “dumb” phone?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the best “dumb” phone?

#52

I got the cheapest phone available at MediaMarkt (German electronics store). It's a SwissOne (don't know which model exactly) for about 30€. The battery life is great (runs more than a week) and it even has dual SIM support. Interestingly, I could not find (in that shop) any phone without a color screen and camera. Really, I just want a phone for calls and SMS. The one downside of that phone is that the audio volume…

I think you're talking about Swisstone SX 567 https://www.amazon.de/swisstone-DUAL-SIM-Mobiltelefon-Strahl...

Re: Ask HN: What is the best “dumb” phone?

#53
post #15

Nothing compares to the Punkt MP01 and MP02 IMO. I've had the MP01 for years and it's fantastic, the only issue has been with service and I imagine that would be resolved with the MP02 and 4g. https://www.punkt.ch/en/products/mp02-4g-mobile-phone/ There's also the Lightphone and forthcoming Lightphone II. That being said, these won't really address privacy concerns per se. They don't support signal or other encrypted…

I have a lightphone I, it is not really a phone. Aside from having a unreadable screen & keypad when in daylight, it is less functional than mobiles in 1996 were. No contacts, no messages, just a phone and a poor one at that. A bit too dumb if you ask me :P

Re: Ask HN: What is the best “dumb” phone?

#55

Being frivolous, not answering the question, but for my money, the best dumb phone is the analog one we used to have, plugged into a socket in the wall. It was often noisy, sound was crummy, it was unwieldy, and it cost a small fortune to run, but it was without perceptible delay, it was fully duplex, and it far better approximated real face to face conversation than the weird false starts and constant stuttering int…

Without some means of call-screening, telemarketing is making this all but untenable in the US.

Oterwise, agreed.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best “dumb” phone?

#56
I was looking into this exact problem last year. I couldn't find a reasonable solution, so I had to take extraordinary steps instead -- I'm building my own phone.

There is literally no phone on the market (that I can find) that is acceptable to me anymore.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best “dumb” phone?

#58

Being frivolous, not answering the question, but for my money, the best dumb phone is the analog one we used to have, plugged into a socket in the wall. It was often noisy, sound was crummy, it was unwieldy, and it cost a small fortune to run, but it was without perceptible delay, it was fully duplex, and it far better approximated real face to face conversation than the weird false starts and constant stuttering int…

> sound was crummy

Maybe. But to my ears, the sounds quality from the old POTS phones was orders of magnitude better than what we get with cellphones even today.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best “dumb” phone?

#60

Ultraorthodox Jews buy dumbphones only because of religious considerations. These are known as Kosher phones. Here is a shop that sells them https://www.zipy.co.il/s/אליאקספרס/-/-/טלפון/?aspect=:::2000...

What exactly is the nature of those religious considerations? Is it just that you can use a dumb phone on friday night without violating the sabbath (can you?)? Is there a religious doctrine that explicitly prohibits general purpose computing devices in the home?

Yeah, the idea is to prohibit work on the sabbath which includes kindling fire, and by association, commanding lights/electronics. So they might have lights on timers and such workarounds, so they don't actually touch them. And killing time on the internet/games/email is probably not in the spirit of studying scripture etc.

No idea how they justify using a dumb phone doesn't trigger the work clause.

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