I've read positive comments about BaldPhone. It's aimed at elderly people, but I don't see reasons why it couldn't be used to make regular smartphones interfaces more usable for everyone.
https://baldphone.com/
Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard
71–80 of 168 posts
Re: Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard
#72We need to reverse the trend of most people having a phone that's wired in with Google or Apple. I don't, and I can't tell you how often I try to do something only to be told, "Okay, now download our app and..." It happened just last week when I was buying a car. The sales rep kept insisting that I install the car company's app while I was trying to just write a check, grab the keys, and drive off the lot. "You can u…
It's bewildering to me that you're the weird, odd one for doing this.
It's in the sales rep's interest.
Re: Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard
#73Re: Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard
#74Be careful with your money. I'm still not convinced this is real. Neither are others:
https://old.reddit.com/r/dumbphones/comments/198y1xi/minimal...
https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMinimalCompany/comments/1aoq90q/...
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/my-company-got-funded-mill...
and
https://old.reddit.com/r/eink/comments/1b35fuz/please_exerci...
Re: Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard
#75The best minimal phone is a cellular smart watch.
Now if these could operate in stand-alone mode... but both Wear OS and watchOS require a companion phone.
Re: Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard
#76I recorded a video of another e ink phone running many common Android apps really well (in direct sunlight)! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvO9ScTdwz8 It's the Hisense A9 with a beautiful and fast Carta 1200 e ink display. It's very capable, I would have preferred a phone more like that instead. It's biggest drawback is terrible USA cell reception. This company was initially going to make a phone like this but appa…
Unfortunately this confirms my fear. I think I’d want to throw an e-ink phone against a wall after a while from frustration with the lag.
E-ink screen refreshes are just far too slow for something interactive. That’s one of the reasons they work great on e-readers.
I wondered if they were doing something special or had a different kind of e-ink screen that was faster in trade for some other property but at least the one in your video doesn’t.
Re: Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard
#77You can do a lot of this on an iPhone if you use focus modes and automations. I have a deep work mode that sets a blank Home Screen, turns off always on display, sets the phone to greyscale and only allows notifications from my wife. It feels like something like this gets you most of the way there and you can then have different focus levels that ramp up potential distractions. All without carrying two devices or giv…
Could you share how you set that up? Sounds effective.
Most of it is just in focus modes settings: alerts, notifications and things like that.
For greyscale you use shortcuts. There’s an automation tab, you set up on a focus mode being enabled then “set color filters on” and then the opposite for that focus mode being disabled.
Re: Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard
#78Re: Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard
#79I appreciate these basic phones but what I need is something different. I would prefer 2 phones: a regular smartphone and a basic feature phone. Then I’d take the one I need when I leave the house. The problem is you either need two lines with your carrier or swap physical sims. Swapping physical sims is inconvenient and means you cant use an esim.
you can have 2 sims with same carrier afaik (but you have to pay for it).
Re: Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard
#80These types of phones keep getting made and people keep not buying them in any significant numbers. I think people want to want this kind of phone. But it ends up being a kind of performance art thing / statement about modern society thing more than filling an actual demand in the market.
Maybe price is a factor? If this thing cost $100 you'd see mass adoption.
My guess is that the people who want minimal phones buy feature phones. They are less of investment for lifestyle change, can be used as secondary phones, and have nostalgia.
I bet this phone would be more popular if it looked more like Blackberry.