💾 Archived View for w1ntermute.cc › gemlog › dreamphone.gmi captured on 2024-03-21 at 14:55:08. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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Being a college student in the smartphone dominated domain, I have become labelled as "that guy who has a flipphone." I don't believe it's hindered my ability to connect with people, as the people I actually care about have my phone number. Also, having a flipphone incentivizes me to hang out with people in real life more often as opposed to just sending them TikToks for my daily Social Interaction. Since my screen time has plummeted and I no longer have the option to tune out my world with music, I've realized how much I'm missing out on the beautiful world we have around us. Often when eating lunch I'll sit in the quad and watch the passerbys and count the ratio of people engaged with a device to without. Usually, it's about one out of twenty people who aren't engaged with their cellphone, headphones, or other random device. It's a bit depressesing. Back to tech minimalism.
I've been using a flip phone for about 6 months now. Originally I used the CAT S22, but I found it to be a bit of a hassle. While it does flip, it lacks in software minimalism running full on Android, with every Google and T-Mobile app under the sun keeping it bloated. Also, it wasn't made to be keypad-only interface and you cannot avoid using the touchscreen in certain occasions. I switched to a used Nokia 2280, which is closer to a feature phone, but still loaded with bloated apps. The keypad is also terrible, but that's what you get for the price.
If I could design the perfect phone for me, I'd have something with a 12-key keypad, (maybe?) e-ink screen with backlight that can text and call, and not much more. Also, completely open source software is a must, preferrably with a stronger license like GPL. RISC-V hardware would be nice as well. Basically a Punkt phone except not Europe-only and open source. One can dream.
If you're considering getting a flip phone or similar in place of your smartphone, go for it. Either that or save the fifty bucks and not look like a drug dealer by just deleting almost all of your apps, turning on parental lock, use a simple app launcher if you're on android, and turn on the grayscale filter.
Until next time,
w1ntermute