All they say is that there’s a (niche) trend of a few people using feature phones with expected combined sales of $2.8 million. Versus the $200 billions of iPhones alone.
I think it’s a fad. The moment you need a certain app or feature these feature (-less) phones become frustrating quickly.
Take the idea of taking a break from your smartphone on a vacation. You end up without a camera, without a map, without public transport apps, contact-free payment, etc.
I think you’d be surprised how easy it is to live without any of those things, even in the modern world. Also, feature phones have cameras and some basic apps. They’re not actually 80s cordless phones.
I wouldn’t be, because smart phones didn’t exist until I was in my 30s. No fucking way am I going back to paper maps and texting only through SMS with T9.
I know the camera quality of this device category. They’re all crap, no exception. And even if you buy the best of the best it will cost you as much as a sophisticated smartphone that does everything better apart from maybe stand-by battery. Which is fine for an emergencyphone.
and some basic apps.
Mostly preinstalled because no app store, non-removable, and you never have to worry about missed updates because you won’t get any.
They’re not actually 80s cordless phones.
Agree, because they’re 2003 cordless phones and they suck for the everyday life of most people.
Okay. I didn’t say they’re good for most people. I don’t think they are. The cameras are good enough for me and the preinstalled apps usually include all the things I care about.
Also, why would I care about updates? Am I supposed to be afraid someone might hack my phone to steal my call history or something? The whole point is that it isn’t being used to log into every service on the face of the Earth.
Again, I’m not advocating for everyone to get a feature phone. I just think they do most of the things I use my phone for, and it would be pretty easy to just not do the rest. The fact that it’s not what most people want is not the same thing as it being terrible.
I mean, the title is clickbaity, but what title isn’t at this point? The actual point of the article is just that there is a small but growing niche of younger people switching to feature phones. I think that’s neat, and I’m starting to consider a feature phone for my next phone myself.
Yes, and pointing out that the title is clickbait is fine, but the entire post seems to be a disagreement with an article that agrees with the commenter. That seems to me to be a very unhealthy way of approaching the problem of clickbait titles.
Edit: I realized you’re not the original person I replied to.
It’s directly in the headline: Gen Z is ditching the iPhone. That’s incorrect in two ways: A) it’s at best one in fifty people buying aforementioned feature phones and B) they don’t even know if all buyers replace their existing phone or buy it as an additional handset.
Yes, I could. But that allows the phone company to be lazy about coverage and building their network. The primary reason I pay a monthly cell phone bill is for a good network.
It also gets into security issues that are different from cellular network use.
And what if my internet is down and I have an emergency?
My smartphone is a second-hand rooted Samsung J530F (2017) but I carry a 2013 Nokia 220 as well. A glitch in my provider’s billing allows for a free 1 MiB per day on a prepaid car with no plan other than a yearly ≥$10 top-up to keep the number. My family’s plans include free calls & texting among us, and I barely ever contact anyone else. So I use the feature phone as a phone but also for basic browsing via Opera Mini (simplified webpages with optionally no images and no client-side scripts). I can search for a train connection while running without looking at the screen, and only use 4% of my data, or view an XKCD comic with 20%! There are no background apps that would use data so I don’t bother turning it off or watching my usage, especially when going over the daily “limit” costs just $0.01/256 kiB. The phone lasts a week on its 1100 mAh battery with such light use. For entertainment, I use my smartphone to download YT audio via NewPipe when I’m on Wi-Fi, or sometimes listen to FM radio on the Nokia if the Samsung’s battery is low (that barely happens even though I only charge it to 80%). If 2G goes down in Czechia (unlikely to be soon because 4G cannot physically cover mountains) or the phone breaks (unlikely even though it was way past the prime of Nokias’ indestructibility), I will likely switch to a KaiOS phone with VoLTE.
These retro-style phones offer limited functionality, lower costs, and are gaining popularity due to digital well-being concerns. Counterpoint projects feature phone sales to reach $2.8 million by 2023, driven by minimalist movements, cost-effective B2B sales, and budget-conscious consumers.
As if we needed another sign that ZDnet was trash…
I fucking hate these obviously bullshit articles. “Gen Z is using feature phones”, “Gen Z are using paper maps”, “Gen Z is doing XYZ”.
No, they aren’t. At best some sad excuse for a journalist found a handful of tweets and wrote a whole article on it like it’s a “trend”.
Look, I know “journalists” are being squeezed to produce at an unreasonable rate but if you write drivel like this then you have no business calling yourself a journalist, hell I don’t even think you can call yourself a “writer” or “contributor” either. It barely passes as writing and you are contributing nothing to society.
I’ve considered doing this in combination with a Pine phone or other impractical but cool linux phone so that I don’t have to worry about not having at least reliable SMS and calling.
Anyone know if there is a tiny dumb phone out there that doubles as a 4G/5G hotspot?
I use a TCL Flip 2, bought it unlocked on ebay for $40. It has hotspot, mms, and emoji support (can’t remember if the included keyboard has any emoji, since I use a custom one that has some, but the system can recognize and display most emoji people send). It actually runs a slimmed down version of android and you can root it and run some stuff, though most things are a pain to use. I’ve got signal, jerboa, and adaway running on mine, though I haven’t found another browser that plays nice yet.
There’s no rule that says flip phones aren’t allowed to have google pay. I think it’d be cool to see what a current year not-smartphone would look like.
I want an Android phone with a full physical keyboard, blackberry style. Not sure if I want to ‘digital detox’ but I don’t value a lot of what our common phone design has to offer.
Just the other day I saw an article with the exact opposite headline about how Gen z is sticking with the iPhone. Now I don’t know which one is full of shit; but it’s obviously one of them.
Personally I switched to a Qin F22 Pro to curb my smartphone addiction. Only have the essential apps installed on it. So far it has worked out well (I used to have a screen time of over 6 hours every day, now just minutes). Life feels so much more peaceful without all the notification spam I used to get, and my mind is definitely more clear now.
Add comment