Dumbphone Sales Are Soaring As People Revolt Against “Overwhelming” Smartphones

Tradeforprofit.net ^ | 3-28-2022

[Hot Tabasco]

A smart phone with texting is a necessity for me since I have an extensive group of softball players who I need to keep updated on any happenings in our pick-up ball group.

Same with my softball team, notifying them of practices or what not. I hate having to make an actual phone call to those who only have land lines...

[HKMk23]

I did like Win7; my acer laptop still runs it, and I’ve zero plan to ever upgrade that. (Famous Last Words, I know)

I have an old COMPAQ that runs XP.

But my HP is a Linux experiment. I liked how it was working, and even used it to Remote in to my office quite a bit. But, it has an NVIDIA graphics card, and that’s been a notorious source of pain in the Linux community, so — yeah.

[MayflowerMadam]

I’m looking at the Unihertz Titan Pocket, and the Unihertz Titan:

https://www.amazon.com/Unihertz-Pocket-Smartphone-Android-Unlocked/dp/B09J4TPZDD/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=titan+pocket&qid=1651522623&s=wireless&sprefix=titan%2Cmobile%2C93&sr=1-1

https://www.amazon.com/Unihertz-Rugged-Smartphone-Android-Unlocked/dp/B0841HHLT9/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=titan+pocket&qid=1651522667&s=wireless&sprefix=titan%2Cmobile%2C93&sr=1-2

[Zhang Fei]

[I did like Win7; my acer laptop still runs it, and I’ve zero plan to ever upgrade that. (Famous Last Words, I know)]

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If you’re not using an SSD in that machine, you may be missing out. Given that you’ve ventured into Linux, I suspect merely swapping out the hard drive isn’t likely to be much of a stretch. Get a copy of Acronis, clone the drive to the SSD, put the SSD in the laptop, and boot up. It’s like I’m using a brand new computer. Except it’s 14 years old.

[MayflowerMadam]

“(A retired software engineer Luddite.)”

Hubby is a retired Physicist, and is so over high tech. I’ve been digging through drawers to retrieve his old flip phones so see which of them can be reactivated with Verizon. I’m sure that one can but will check on the others.

[MayflowerMadam]

“Verizon Kyocera,”

Do you have that Kyocera XV Extreme? We’re considering that one.

The article must be correct in that people are going back to the basics. As soon as our local Verizon and Cellular Sales get a batch of these in, they’re gone in a few days.

[SamAdams76]

I miss the days of the good old fashioned point and shoot film cameras. Back then, you had to be more careful about taking pictures because you only had so many shots in that roll of film and whether you accidently took a picture of your feet or not, you are still being charged for that whole roll of film.

People did not take photos of their food at restaurants back then. People also did not back up to the edge of Grand Canyon so they could get that "selfie". In fact, if you said you were taking a selfie back in the 1980s, people just assumed you were playing with yourself.

Those were the good old simple days. You shot your roll of film and then went to the Fotomat at the strip mall, a tiny little building in the middle of the parking lot, and you filled out a long white envelope with all your pertinent information, dropped the film into the envelope, sealed it and dropped it into a big box with a slot on it (if it was after hours).

Five days later you would show up to collect your developed photos only to be told that they weren't ready yet. So you went to the arcade, played a few games of PacMan and went home.

A few days later, your photos were ready and you paid the disinterested clerk the seven dollars and went through your photos in the car. Out of the 15 or so photos, two or three were of total blackness, three or four were all blurry and if you were lucky, you got about a half a dozen keepers that you would eventually insert into the plastic sleeve of a photo album and carefully print out a sentence or two about who was in the picture and where it was taken.

More likely however, you wrapped the photos in a rubber band and put them aside in a desk drawer for sorting out later. Eventually, they ended up stored in cardboard boxes up in your attic. Go ahead, go check them out. They are probably still there today.

[MayflowerMadam]

“I even prefer an old fashioned desk-top - don’t know how anyone really WORKS on a laptop.”

My desktop died so I’ve been using a laptop. It’s an aggravating toy. Later this week I’ll be ordering a NEW Windows 7 desktop from NIXSYS. They have a section of “legacy” computers and will build Windows 7 and XP desktops.

[HKMk23]

I might. The HP got a big boost doubling the RAM to 8GB (it was out of the factory as an XP 64 machine and shipped with 4GB), so going SSD on the drive side would be the logical next upgrade.

I might do that to this acer too, come to think of it.

Good tip. Thanks.

[GaltAdonis]

"... but will check ..."

I wish you good luck on your quest, M.M.!

[blam]

"Hubby is a retired Physicist, and is so over high tech. I’ve been digging through drawers to retrieve his old flip phones so see which of them can be reactivated with Verizon. I’m sure that one can but will check on the others."

I'm a retired chip-maker, son is a physicist. I keep getting text messages from Verizon of a $50 dollar off deal on a new phone because mine will stop working at the end of the year, 3G.

[MayflowerMadam]

“Anyone finding this FORCED SHIFT to 4G and 5G, SHUTTING DOWN 3G, results in worse coverage and signal ?”

Absolutely. My flip Motorola v60s from 2002 was much better than the current smart phones. It had a much stronger signal, and the replaceable battery lasted forever. I still have it as a memento. It looked excellent.

[Jamestown1630]

We’re looking for a new desktop, too. Freeper GaltAdonis posted about mini computers, which I hadn’t heard of, and I’d really like one if it works with everything we use. (We run Linux, and don’t do anything very complicated; but we have lots of things we plug into the computer):

https://freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/4050489/posts?page=56#43

Also, these don’t seem to have CD/DVD drives, so I assume you’d need an external drive for them.

[MayflowerMadam]

“My Blackberry Passport from 10 years ago was finally at ‘end of life’.”

My BlackBerry Classic is no longer supported, although the icon on the screen does say 4G. Loved that device. My BB Priv still is supported but it’s having battery issues.

[MayflowerMadam]

“the one thing that would be hard to live without would be Google Maps for travelling and avoiding traffic jams,”

That’s the only reason I have a smartphone. We just have a Garmin GPS with free lifetime updates for traffic and maps, and I’ll see if that can fill a void of Google GPS.

[MayflowerMadam]

“the one thing that would be hard to live without would be Google Maps for travelling and avoiding traffic jams,”

That’s the only reason I have a smartphone. We just have a Garmin GPS with free lifetime updates for traffic and maps, and I’ll see if that can fill a void of Google GPS.

[blam]

I remember that clearly.

When I retired, the group I worked in were using 30, $3 million dollar each Nikon steppers (cameras) to print patterns for intergrated circuits.

US Patent number 4902608 is my patent for an improved developer machine and process for developing wafers.

Things have really changed.

[Jamestown1630]

I have one of those strange Holga 120 cameras. I’ve never taken it out to play with, but it does interesting, quirky things:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holga

[Zhang Fei]

[I might. The HP got a big boost doubling the RAM to 8GB (it was out of the factory as an XP 64 machine and shipped with 4GB), so going SSD on the drive side would be the logical next upgrade.

I might do that to this acer too, come to think of it.

Good tip. Thanks.]

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I’ve done memory upgrades. The gain in speed was marginal. I delayed the SSD upgrade for 5 years, fearing reliability issues. After installation, if I knew then what I know now, I would have installed the SSD 5 years ago, even though it would have cost triple the price back then. I had heard from people for years about how big a difference SSD’s made, but I was skeptical. Not any more.

[MayflowerMadam]

“Google Voice is a good option for non-activated phones”

That sounds interesting. Have never used Google Voice.

To use it on a non-activated phone do you set it up via wifi on that device, or would you have to set up Voice on a PC first?