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Dumbphone experiment results

I'm now on my fourth day with the dumbphone and that in itself is promising. My provisional conclusion is that the phone is probably good enough.

Here's how it measures up so far to the hopes (if not expectations) I wrote about previously:

My dumbphone experiment

I can't possibly say whether this is something I'm going to use long enough for it to be a replacement for my smartphone that's cheaper and less wasteful of material resources over the long term. The user-replaceable battery is straightforward: the back of the phone pops off without tools and you have to take the battery in/out to insert the SIM. So that's all good. Not so good is the general cheap and flimsy feel of the phone. It doesn't feel like it's built to last but it's a step up from obviously disposable. The keypad particularly is very weak and I'd be surprised if it lasted more than a couple of years with moderate use. No idea how easy it would be to replace it.

I'm surprised how quickly I've got out of the habit of picking up my phone in random "spare" moments. For the first couple of days I'd instinctively reach for the dumbphone in my pocket, only to catch myself and realise that there's nothing to see or do there. Check the time? Read old text messages? That's about it. This is a huge gain for my focus because it means that in those spare moments I'm off a screen entirely. I'm very pleased with this and really wouldn't want to go back to having a handy smartphone where there's always something to catch up on in odd moments.

The call quality is adequate, especially when I've got a 4G signal. It seems fine both using the handset directly and using wired headphones with a mic. It's not quite as good as my smartphone, perhaps only three quarters as good. I presume this is down to using cheaper components across the board, including the 4G modem, the speaker and mic, etc. But it's a huge improvement over my previous ultra-cheap 2G dumbphone that sounded so bad on calls it was practically unusable.

I haven't missed having a camera out with me. To the contrary, it's nice not to have to think about the possibility of photographing or videoing something when out. I'm sure there'll be the odd occasion when I really miss having a camera with me for something specific but it hasn't happened yet. I'm going to try to get in the habit of taking a notebook and pencil out with me to jot down little bits of information that I might otherwise have photographed with my smartphone.

The battery life didn't last all weekend. It got to a low battery warning pretty quickly so I charged it all the way up. I'm not convinced that it'll give appreciably more battery life than my smartphone, which is disappointing given that I'm using it far less. The old cliche of only needing to charge your dumbphone once a week doesn't appear to apply in this case and that's a real shame.