I've been looking for more and less "dumb" phones, baisically phones which are minimalistic to design, kind of like old phones which are practically bricks or flip phones. It's taken me very much effort and I still haven't been able to find anything suitable.

My main smart phone has been breaking more and more and while it is a very good practice to repair it, I've also started longing for something different.

The modern phone is in my opinion way too overdesigned with every feature supposed to be almost addictively made and executed. Just like with this website, there is a charm in old and simple technology, it just does what it's supposed to without all the flashy stuff which is just there to make it sell better.

While this is the major reason I'd like to get an old school phone, the simplicity also has a big chance of bringing privacy and less bloatware which is a huge plus.

I've been looking for really minimalistic phones preferably even without touchscreen, as this seems like a nice level to aim for and I'd like to hit hard when going for it and gutting a "downgraded" phone.

When looking at such simpler phones, I've found two markets: really old phones and new ones inspired by old school phones. The old ones unfortunately never seem to support LTE bandwidth and since I live in Europe, other bandwidths will be useless soon as they are being shut down.

The newer phones seem to have four major markets:

• Phones for eldery. These seem overly dumb and worthless, not what I want or need.
• Phones made to be trendy, nice and look as much as old phones as possible. These include modern Nokia variants. The problem I find with these is that they mostly seem to be made for quick consumption - they are often quite bad hardware wise and limited software wise and seem pretty much boring.
• Phones for small kids as "a first phone"...
• Phones made for workers. These are very powerful hardware wise and could be used as hammers, though it seems to be a relatively small market.

I started looking more into "construction worker phones" as these seem quite cool. They're durable, have good specs, and sometimes cool features.

The major issue I find with these phones is that their software is very heavily controlled. I'd like to be able to run custom code relatively freely on my own device and amazing phones like Hammer unfortunately are very locked down software wise as well as being very rare.

I found one phone called Sonim which had almost everything I wanted: it is durable, simple and light while holding a quite good standard. It even runs android, which means you can practically mod it however you want AND it runs Swedish bank/security apps and I found a few people who had made some hacking and tampering with it. However, this phone is very rare and isn't available at the European market at all unless you dare buy from sketchy Chinese ali express sites, which I don't want to risk and probably comes with heavy tariffs.

I've had a hard time finding any phones which actually seem nice. Perhaps you know any?

I've even started thinking about building my own phone, though getting data modules to work as well as assembling everything seems like huge amounts of work which I've barely got any experience with, though I know a few people who do. Do you have any experience with constructing devices?

What do you think about phones? What phones do you use and do you have any advice?

This is precisely the predicament that i was thrown into last year.

I went from having a regular, generic iPhone 11 to having a Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact. Then, the XZ1 phone's internal network data card (forgot what it's called) broke off and disconnected internally after a small drop, rendering it useless outside of wifi connections. Extremely weak and had issues especially with the screen popping out if it got too warm for a few seconds. Waste of time and money, but atleast it had a good form factor.

Funnily enough, I have been currently rocking a Sonim XP8 since then. Right now I'd say it's the best thing you can get right now:

>indestructible
>can be extremely loud if you want it to
^ downside, good luck if you need to listen to anything extremely quiet, but I personally find no need in doing that
>battery will last you more than 78 hours from 80% if you use your phone in a conservative manner
>you can use it as a blunt weapon
>REMOVABLE, REPLACEABLE BATTERY. In the modern age? This is probably a big reason you should go with this phone.
^ The SIM card and SD card is located under the removable battery. If any loser snatches your phone, they'd need to make the effort to take out the battery panel, take the battery out, then take the sim and SD card.. And this assumes you would LET them run away with something like that, atleast not without bonking them on the head with it, first

>programmable buttons. I have no idea how to actually make these do anything other than open programs, though.
The yellow button I've programmed to open a flashlight app I got from F-Droid that lets me customize how rapidly it'll flash the light on and off among other things, The red button opens up an audio recorder, also from F-Droid (I record everything at all times, mostly for safety and future reviewing). The large side button next to the power button opens up Libre Camera.

The only (potential) downsides of this phone are:

>underpowered hardware, so not tailored for gaming but can run modern Roblox at a good theorized 30-40 FPS.
^ I don't play games on this thing, so this doesn't impact me. Wouldn't be surprised if you found issues playing anything above 1080p, but I rarely watch any videos on here, so it doesn't impact me.. And when I do, I try my best to play it in 720p, because you don't really need more than 480p but 720p works if you need to read any text inside of the video.
>physical buttons, if you're too used to Android's touch screen
^ This is actually a benefit. This was not a downside for me but plenty of people said they didn't like it. Physical buttons are more tactile, WILL work in the rain/mud/etc and generally feel better than tapping on glass to get where you are

>One camera lens. Zooming is in software AFAIK.
^ This is not a downside for me, as now you're able to take photos that look like they were taken before 2010 in the modern age! It's simply brilliant. I'd ought to show you some of the things I've been taking recently.

Those aren't really downsides for me. It simply is rather an encouragement to do real things with your phone instead of using it as a tool to leverage psychological warfare (I love abusing that phrase) against yourself.

However, the actual downside:

>Extremely difficult to root. There is no real rooting/hacking scene on the Sonim XP8 outside of people trying in an XDA thread and bricking parts of their phone or permanently fucking things up, requiring them to purchase a new one. I did not attempt this because I simply cannot risk having to buy another phone, and the only real reasons I ever rooted my phones in the past were for getting rid of all of the Google bullshit and extending my battery life as a result.
Instead of this, I opted to rather abuse ADB and remove everything that could be remotely annoying or something that'd run in the background and waste my resources.

Currently, I'm using the AT&T model while using a sim card for another ISP. Unfortunately, this means that while the Sonim XP8 does sport the ability to use 2 sim cards at once, the fucks over at AT&T purposefully made it so you can't use it to power 2 sim cards that aren't from AT&T at once.
The actual jist of it is that you can't put anything other than AT&T in the second sim slot, or else it'll brick it out, apparently. I however, do not have a second sim card nor can I find a use for having one, so this currently does not impact me.

In conclusion.. My battery life is pristine and longlasting. I only really need to charge my phone every few days because it has a bigger battery than both the iPhone 11 and XZ1 Compact, it has underpowered hardware, and I only really use my phone for basic functionality that has existed since 2005. It fits all of my needs, works with 4G LTE (this is all I need. 5G is a downgrade) and below and generally is a well rounded device.

Lineage OS or CalyxOS handys

https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
https://calyxos.org/docs/guide/device-support/

@I-i thanks for your input on the Sonar phones! I want them even more badly now!!! Sad thing they're super expensive and rare in the EU, the latest model I'm able to get my hands on is the Sonar XP5 for 5-6k euro which is a huge bit out of my price range. Will be keeping an eye at second hand markets, currently found an XP3 for 50 euro but they seem extremely old...

@guestgeist I've looked at lineage before and it seems really nice! Perhaps I could build a custom phone with one of its supported devices as foundation, though most of the phones it support seem to be way too much "smart phones" for me.

Haven't seen calyxos before, will definitely be looking at that though it seems like a smaller project.

Thank you!

Honestly, I’ve been thinking about this exact thing for a while now. It’s like modern smartphones aren’t even phones anymore, just mini ad delivery platforms with tracking sensors that also happen to make calls sometimes.

I miss the idea of a phone just being... a phone. Call. Text. Alarm. Done. Maybe Snake if you're lucky.

The Sonim XP8 honestly sounds like a dream. Never heard of it until this thread, but now I’m kinda obsessed. The physical buttons alone got me hooked tbh. I don’t even care if it can’t run 4K YouTube garbage. If it can survive a drop and doesn’t try to sync my biometrics to some server in California, that’s already better than 90% of what’s out there.

But yeah, I’m with you on the LTE problem in Europe. Most of the good "dumb-smart" phones are either:

Locked into the US ecosystem,

Weirdly expensive or impossible to find over here,

Or just aesthetic bait — like the fake minimalist phones you mentioned that are secretly just Android under a skin and lag after a week.

The XP3 could be a good catch if you're just looking for basics. 50€ sounds like a steal even if it's not gonna run Lineage or anything fun. Honestly I wouldn’t even mind one of those QWERTY slider phones if I could find one that still supports modern bands and doesn’t explode when I turn it on.

I’ve also been looking at the Punkt MP02, but it’s stupidly overpriced and limited. Looks cool, though. Probably good if you want something that screams "I read offline philosophy zines and don't have notifications enabled."

The idea of building your own phone? Mad respect. I’ve thought about it but I barely have the patience to solder, let alone deal with antenna tuning and sourcing LTE-compatible modems. There's that ZeroPhone project too but I think it's mostly dead now? Like most good things. :/

All that said, I think there is a market for this kind of stuff, but it’s just buried under TikTok gadgets and startup fluff. If someone actually made a modular, durable, privacy-focused dumbphone that didn’t cost 1000€, I feel like they’d have a niche army of weirdos (myself included) ready to jump on it.

Until then… I guess it’s secondhand markets, modded old phones, or just learning to live without.

maybe I’ll just tape an FM radio to a pager and call it a day lol

The modern "simple" phones are totally useless unless you use them for phone calls only and nothing more. And the advanced modern flip phones are overpriced as hell.

Just buy an actual old phone if you can find one in reasonable price and decent condition.

I used to have a samsung J7... but when I tried to recover it and flashing it with a newer j7, it bricked..

Sonim phones are a beaut. Do not get anything newer than the XP8 - THESE FUCKERS ARE TRYING TO BOOTLEG APPLE INSTEAD OF DOUBLING DOWN ON BEING INDESTRUCTIBLE. Was there a change in management?

Their flip/dumber phones are awesome. One shared quality between ALL Sonim phones is that you can also use them as a deadly blunt weapon as well.

XP8 has a fucked up hotspot if you use a Sim card other than the original provider of the phone :(

rugged phones are badass as fuck, but I'm still part of the crowd who fucking hates 5G in phones.
I am never going to purchase a phone that has 5G in it. It is an inefficient and potentially dangerous technology that provides very little benefit over any previous ones.

It's dangerous, especially because it encourages web developers and internet powered utilities in general to send and load more unoptimized bloat and telemetry, completely throwing away older devices for the sake of convenience.

Are there any actual downsides to 5G other than it being jammed by the rain and being able to triangulate you more precisely?

I don't get the hate

it uses up more battery

>being able to triangulate you more precisely?
this is fucking horrifying

>this is fucking horrifying

Bad news to you if you've ever had a phone in your pocket, but the government could track you down to a few meters since 3G

Ok maybe a few dozend to a hundred meters on 3G, but you get the point.

>it uses up more battery

It's the tradeoff you get for faster data transfers, I can see how it wouldn't work for everyone.
If you don't want to use it, there is probably an option on your phone to disable it though.

Considering downgrading my XP8 for more performance but I would lost orange filter and dark mode.. T-T

What is peoples opinion on the phones made by caterpillar here? i was considering getting one at one point since it had features that was looking for which includes the durability, thermal imaging, testing air pollution and so forth.
The only downside from what i've gather it's the same problem with sonim is that it's not easy to root/hack and it seems phones of similar nature has this common issue but i can easily settle with two phones with different purposes one personal one work which i already do with my two laptops anyway but i'm curious what people think of catapillar.

>what people think of catapillar.

Their designs seem inherently less bulky than the Sonim (XP8 and below only) phones, atleast the ones I looked at.
There's a guy on YouTube who recorded almost a hundred videos consisting of him trying to break his Sonim XP8 and it died only because he cooked it in Jello. I don't know if there's anything similar for the Catapillar phones, though

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrBmCNzSKK7wZ8iLvzOkaloC-tXpsSNRd

Something to consider.

>Something to consider.
I looked into the xp8 for awhile, while it's near indestructible - it severely lacks features that i need at my work and lack of a thermal imaging camera just defeats the whole point that i'm trying to achieve personally. i do carry around a thermal imaging camera but it's incredibly bulky and just another thing i have to bring to work in which im seeking to minimize the amount of crap i need to carry around and CAT S60 is probably the best fit. if anybody somehow manages to figure out how to throw grapheneOS or similar onto any of the sonim phones, i'll definitely get one as a personal phone.