My real wife demands I have a GPS, so it's kind of limited me on what phone I can choose -- I need something dumb enough to be less of a distraction, but smart enough that I won't get lost in the wilderness.
For that reason, I'm really eyeing the Nokia 6300 4G. I'm in America and it's supported by lots of ( cheap! ) carriers. It has google maps and a couple of other applications built in, but it's otherwise a terrible phone all around, which makes me believe I won't be able to stand using it for long, so I'm excited to try it out. Or rather, buy it, and not try it out very much.
I have done pretty well with a combo of Nokia dumbphone for calls and texts, and a separate smartphone with no SIM as needed. I leave my smartphone at work or in the car when I want a break.
Only downside really is no WhatsApp but you can get a KaiOS phone that supports WhatsApp if it's essential.
Honestly the urge to constantly pull it out just passes after a couple of days. The boredom is intense but pretty soon you won't miss it and will enjoy other activities.
I also had good results with a very very cheap Android phone running Android Go. It was so slow that I just didn't want to use it for browsing. Downside is as a Dad I want to have a good camera within reach for special moments.
> I have done pretty well with a combo of Nokia dumbphone for calls and texts, and a separate smartphone with no SIM as needed. I leave my smartphone at work or in the car when I want a break.
This is my route, too. I use a Sonim XP3 for my day-to-day communications: calling and text. I have an old Xperia flashed with SailfishOS when I want a pocket computer for calendaring (I use the calendar to record memories of my kids), light web browsing, and the occasional note.
If you are looking for a smarter dumb phone, you might like the Sonim XP3800. I chose it because I was looking for a dumber phone that supported Signal and although the Punkt phone was sleek the experience was suboptimal.
I tried this with a unihertz jelly 2e. it's full android but ultra small. it didn't help it just made it frustrating, so after a month or so I went back to my old phone.
I also don't recommend the jelly 2e in particular because for some reason the only usb-c cable that's charges it effectively is the one it comes with, I couldn't find a single other cable that would charge it quickly, only trickle charge essentially...
You can always just use an iPhone and turn on screen time, with tons of restrictions. You can "remove" the browser, adding apps, of course any app you want (including core ones like messaging), and keep a few useful ones like Google Maps, etc. Then have your wife or someone else set the passcode on it and bam, you have a "dumb" smart phone. If you ever need full functionality for something like a trip abroad, etc., you can have them unlock it. I do this with my wife sometimes because I don't like all the distractions, or even the distraction of resisting the urge to be distracted. Works great.
I've bought several of these phones. My texting habits are relatively minimal, but I'm apparently pretty hard on T9-capable keyboards.
I bought a Sonim XP3 recently that is chunky, terrible for web browsing, and ideal for texting. One of its predecessors was featured on "Will it Blend?"[1] and only mostly blended (try that with an iPhone).
I've not destroyed anything on this phone, whereas the keyboards on my two Nokias died in less than a month.
Ah -- I guess I should've been a bit more specific -- by GPS I just meant "some app that can do directions when we're in a weird place", not really tracking, necessarily.
I uh.
Don't really leave the house. So, not much to track :D
Or trust "I know they'll only use this when its actually required"
Lots of ways to frame things, given my relationship history the more verifiable information I have the safer I feel. I will need a partner that strikes a healthy balance between asserting her own right to freedoms and empathy to the realities of my emotional state and past and how she can choose a minor sacrifice on her behalf for a major win for her partner. Afterall, isn't that what we all do in relationships?
If she's not cool with it, then cool, she's probably just not my person :) ..
idk these days seems like a lot of couples have "share location" turned on 24/7. Don't really know how healthy that is. Really good in a emergency though...
Healthy depends very much on the relationship, as a sibling post pointed out. I'm not a fan of the "if you have nothing to hide" argument in the general case, but in this case of my wife we have nothing private between us. In fact, its the things we share that make up the bulk of what I consider private from others. I figure that if Google, my cell provider, the government, and who knows how many other corporate entities have ready access to my location data, why not her? In practice she has more interesting and useful things to do with her time than watch me all day.
We have it on all the time, but for us it's because we moved out to BFE and don't know our way around very well. It's very possible for us to be lost and damned.
Healthy is as healthy does. Our relationship kicks ass, so "location on" isn't a trust issue to us, it's an "oh dear, hopefully my loved one wasn't kidnapped" issue.
The GPS I have in my car has similar functionality including traffic alerts that it gets over radio, but it's a bit large to be carrying around. No idea if any of the handheld ones have the same capabilities.
I'm a fan of the Unihertz Jelly 2. It's great for 'detoxing' from smartphone usage because it is still able to provide useful everyday functions like Google Maps, but is so small that it's infuriating to use for mindless scrolling/entertainment purposes.
In my experience - it can provide a 'full day' of usage, possibly more if used minimally. Given that my use case is a conscious effort to minimize screen time, I haven't ever found myself worried about battery life.
The cat s22 isn't exactly a dumb phone but it is a flip with a numpad and a very small touch screen which makes it much less addictive. You can still hotspot with it and have access to apps when needed. I love mine so far
How long does the battery on something like that last?
I'm thinking of something like that and an iPad mini to tether when I need to actually use a screen, the mini would be too big to just keep in my pocket and pull out so I'll only use it for banking, maps, etc.
I have kept my smartphone and use that for maps (as gps still works) and music (predownloaded) in the car and occasionally around the house, but treat it more like my laptop now.
For that reason, I'm really eyeing the Nokia 6300 4G. I'm in America and it's supported by lots of ( cheap! ) carriers. It has google maps and a couple of other applications built in, but it's otherwise a terrible phone all around, which makes me believe I won't be able to stand using it for long, so I'm excited to try it out. Or rather, buy it, and not try it out very much.