We Switched to Dumbphones So You Won't Have To




The MKBHD Team loves the idea of dumbphones, so we split up to test a few different minimalist devices! Spoilers: there isn’t a …

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43 Comments

  1. 1GB for music is just fine,I just looked it up and 1GB of music is 18 hours !!!
    you don't need that much bit-rate for music files if you're just using simple microphones.

  2. 15 to 16 hours average screen time here. Screen time doesn't tell the whole story though. I have mostly gotten out of the habit of doom scrolling and realized that shorts are… detrimental to my mental state, lol. It's perfectly healthy to have long-form content like podcasts, reviews, and video essays on in the background while getting something productive done.

  3. I don't understand why the Nokia feature phones are not considered as the option for a replacement for a smartphone. They have features like Maps, Gpay, music, a camera, and a decent operating system.

  4. while the zflip is in no way a dumbphone, I have found that i use my phone less because of the outside screen. Sometimes i will open my phone just to look at my calendar and find myself going through tiktok instead and an hour later going "why did I open my phone again?" but with the outside screen i do less of that.

  5. ๐Ÿคฆ conclusion: we want less screen time, but we want a fully usable phone and it should have all the features we use everyday all the day.

  6. I think Maria was onto something with the perfect dumb phone idea. This would be mine:
    -Flip phone with physical buttons (maybe the option of full qwerty for most productivity or just num pad so I can go back to T9 texting)
    -Z-flip front display size but really good e-ink like the Boox, touchscreen for app compatibility
    -Cellular and GPS
    -Full android app support so I can use Google Maps, Spotify, Strava, and occasionally a web browser (QR menu is a good reason why)
    -Decent-ish camera
    -Crappy enough internals so playing games or social media is bad but not too crappy so texting and calling works good and the phone is overall responsive

  7. Reducing smartphone usage is most effective when compared to a sense of calm after the storm. You may see a tornado take your house, but what you gain is a clean slate to start over and rebuild your foundation the way you want to, not the way modern technology tells you to.

  8. Honestly the Defactor phone has the best potential if they just updated the specs a bit

    Better Camera
    Better Battery (if needed)
    Better storage
    Better refresh rate
    Allow for data (if that's not already a thing)
    & For existing apps to work better (and for ones I mention below that might not already be available)

    Then continue to only have apps like Email, Google Maps, texting, calling, video calling, calculator, calendar, clock, files, notes & photo gallery

    However the most interesting to me is the Boox Palma just not sure if I'd be able to handle everything in black n white every day & I'd definitely not want to watch stuff on this for long periods of time which is it's whole purpose & very much succeeds in that department (& shouldn't even have stuff like YT & Tiktok even available anyways) but no native calling & texting is rough as none of my friends use any other texting app other then the main one

    I'd also like for at least Snapchat & FB Messenger (I don't need FB itself) available on one of those devices strictly because that's how I mainly communicate with alot of friends & family members (I barely ever text so)

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