Drawbacks of smart-phones

• Planned obsolidence (no more updates after N years).
• All the time fighting with pre-installed apps and applications that always want to do the wrong thing
• Short battery life. There is always “range ancienty” with a smartphone.
• Smartphones do everything ok, except calling.
• Smartphone prevent you from seeing and interacting with the outside world.
• always distractions and notifications.
• They are expensive.
• No more almost daily updating of apps on your phone.
• They can be hacked, and will be hacked.
• There is always the fear of loosing your phone (I’ve never seen people more panicked they when they lost or thought they lost their phone)
• Your whole life on one device, especially when payments are also done through the phone. When the phone is gone, who are you going to call? How will you pay the cab? How will you open the bluetooth enabled doorlock?

Advantages dumbphone

• Long battery life. You will even forget to charge your phone, because standbytime is so long.
• SMS is now almost everywere free, same as with voice calls, negating the need to use signal, whatsapp, etc.
• No fear of loosing your phone. Simply request a new SIM card, and buy a cheap new phone. You might even buy 2, to keep one ready to use if needed.
• Start seeing the world again, and be open to interactions again.
• Be bored, write, doodle. Boredom is neccecary for creativity.
• No more fear for hacks, etc.
• No longer bound to Google or Apple or other corporate overlords.
• No more survailance society watching your every move
• A dumbphone is almost impossible to hack, since it has no apps, and a really small attack surface.
• Anybody who want or needs to reach you can do so.
• Distractions almost completely disapear.
• You will go out and interact more with people, which is real fun, and much better than the fleeting social contacts that never satisfy.
• You can still bring a smartphone when needed, next to your dumbphone. When traveling this is the smart thing to do (use the smartphone as a tiny computer, not as a communicater).

What to look for in a dumb-phone?

• What are killer applications on a smart-phone? Actually only one, which is Google Maps. If you are lost, or have to be somewere specific, then a maps application is indespensible.
• So if your dumb phone has support for Google maps or a equivalent, then it suffices.
• A clamshell phone has the advantage that pocket-calling is not possible anymore.
• Keep a smartphone for traveling (or a really small tablet)
• If you take a tablet with you, then a dumbphone that has tethering (wifi-sharing of a mobile datanetwork) is really handy.
• If you really want to take a camera with you, consider a gopro, or buy a dumbphone with a good cam and the posibilty to have a really large MicroSD card.

Where to keep a old smartphone?

• Treath it like a fixed phone or a tablet. Put it always on a fixed location.
• Don’t take it with you when you go out the door.
• Do take it with you when traveling, and put at your destination a local simcard in it for data only.
• Do not use financial apps on the smart-phone, but always use the webinterface.
• Same thing with airbnb, etc. Try to make your smart-phone as ‘stateless’ as possible.
• ebooks, e-tickets, pre-downloaded maps are really good to have on the smart phone.