pleroma.debian.social

pleroma.debian.social

How old is your mobile phone?

@cks Oh, I can see that.

@scuttlebutt The other thing about fingerprint vs face unlock is that, as I was reminded today, I spend a certain amount of time carrying my phone around face-up and looking at it with it deliberately not unlocked. Fingerprint unlock is very hard to accidentally trigger (and then accidentally wind up touch-interacting with stuff on the screen). I suspect face unlock is more trigger happy, but maybe I'm wrong.

@scuttlebutt I actually do have two Nokia 6150 (ca. 27 years) in workable shape, but they tend to lose battery contact and often enough also SIM "contact" (my guess is that modern SIMs need more power than older ones which the old phone doesn’t deliver; my Trium Astral failed mostly the same way), so I’m suffering with a dumbphone of about five or so years of age.

They want to turn off GSM in 3-5 years anyway. Don’t know what I do then. Probably suffering trying to phone on a breaking-down smartphone.

@mirabilos
They do still make dumbphones. It takes a bit of looking, but they're there.

https://www.bestproducts.com/tech/electronics/g60343009/best-dumb-phones/ has a few examples (I have nothing to do with this site, just found it by a simple web search)
@scuttlebutt
replies
1
announces
1
likes
1

My mobile phone is a Xiaomi from mid-2018, cracked screen, but still works. I use it as less as possible.

@scuttlebutt
This one is under 2 years (maybe under 1), but the predecessor made it 6 years or so.

@silvermoon82 @scuttlebutt yeah, probably the poll should be 'how long do you keep your phone, barring or including partial or total destruction" :-P

@scuttlebutt @wouter I know they still do, I’m using one from Aldi from 4-5 years or so ago at the moment, but (almost) all of them use only GSM still, and I don’t see plans of that changing (or they want to milk out old stock first…), also making a 5G dumbphone is going to be quite more expensive, and I have pretty bad experience with the durability of those (lost a Nokia 110 in its belt bag on a bus trip, display broke but front was undamaged, so possibly the small amount of side torsion…)

@scuttlebutt @cks uh, just don’t enable it. I don’t have any biometrics set up.

Stick to 18 though for now, don’t get a device that already ships with 36. That’s gonna be a pain.

@mirabilos @scuttlebutt The more modern ones do speak 4G. The difference between 4G and 5G is data bandwidth, which for a dumbphone is only relevant if you want to turn it into a mobile hotspot (but then you can buy a device specifically for that). For phone calls, a 4G dumbphone should be good for years to come.

Of course that doesn't answer the reliability, but then that's probably just another case of planned obsolescence, not much I can help with that...

@cks @scuttlebutt I don't think you're wrong, that's my experience too.

@scuttlebutt @arrjay I’ve got my wife’s prior 12, and I still have the X laying around.

@becomingwisest @scuttlebutt I’ve got a weird gap going on because I bought the iPhone SE 3 basically the month they stopped selling it in Apple stores, so it’s the newest of an older phone?

@scuttlebutt

The only reason I have a new phone is because I los my android phone. My new phone is Linux - FuriOS's FLX1.