How many of you could never go back to a "dumb phone"

I never could. Last year my 3G froze up and I didn't have time to fix it so I threw my sim in my mom's old flip phone for the evening. It took me 5 minutes to send a short text. It was quite horrible, I could never go back.
 
Dumb phones are for dumb generations. Smart phones are for smart people who live in this smart generation. The actual phone part is the part of the phone I use least.
 
never ever ever. i don't know how people do it now. once you go to a smart phone why would you ever go back?
 
JoeG4 said:
One thing I am deeply afraid of as a college student, is that cellphones - smart or dumb - will give any future employer of mine the sense that they own me hook line and sinker. That's frightening! If your employer offers you a phone you might wanna RUN because who the hell wants to hear from their employer when they're off the clock and not obligated to handle work ****?
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Just because they call doesn't mean you have to answer. I miss calls all the time, even though I always have my phone on me. Unless you're a doctor or a lawyer or something I don't see any reason to have to take work calls outside of work hours.
 
For me I could not go back to a dumb phone. I could loss the web browser and the apps but the biggest thing a smart phone brings to the table for me is email and being able to check email on the go is a great thing. It has saved me many time as I got the email as it came in and was able to address it quickly. That or getting ready to head up to school and get an email that tells me class is canceled or school closed. Saved me driving up there.

JoeG4 said:
One thing I am deeply afraid of as a college student, is that cellphones - smart or dumb - will give any future employer of mine the sense that they own me hook line and sinker. That's frightening! If your employer offers you a phone you might wanna RUN because who the hell wants to hear from their employer when they're off the clock and not obligated to handle work ****?
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You have a lot to learn about the world. A company phone does not exactly mean that expect you to be able to answer 24/7 unless you are the one currently on call but that would be part of your job description and you generally rotate with a few others on who is the one on call.
Most of the time you are given cells because during the work day it is just easier to get a hold of you threw a cell because you are away from your desk. That or maybe you need to call in after work.
When you get higher up it helps as you can tell people under you to call you if they need to and you find that 5-10 mins of extra work threw the phone will save you hours of problems when you get in the next morning.

I know plenty of people who have company phones that when they are with their family they just turn them off or leave them in the car. That or they just do not answer a phone call from a work number.
Unless you are the one on call then it is not like you have to answer it.
 
I went back, but then again I don't need an iPhone. A regular pay-as-you-go phone and an iPod is much better for me.
I do miss my pocket GPS and decent camera though! But not £35/month miss.
 
Funny this discussion has come up. I just switched to a dumb phone because my employer has now issued me a sony erricson W200s. Oh well it's free and saves me $65 a month.
 
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I could not. My blackberry even killed me a little. Though that was just the browser.
 
the.sheepdog said:
Dumb phones are for dumb generations. Smart phones are for smart people who live in this smart generation. The actual phone part is the part of the phone I use least.
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so then what do you do on it? the majority of people would say "play games" or "check stuff online" or "emails/facebook/twitter"... nothing that really means they are smart, or part of a "smart generation"
 
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NachoGrande said:
I tried to use my wife's work phone and I was baffled. A phone with 1/8 of the function was 100x more complex.

I'll never go back to a dumb phone.
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That reminds me of the 2007 intro of the iPhone. Goal was to make is functional and easy to use....

I had an iphone for years, but the family decided to move to sprint, so I picked up a BBerry like my previous phone. I went along with the switch because i take the iPad everywhere. It is awful, comparatively speaking. I had not used a BBerry in years, but the UI and functionality seemed stuck in 2005. Even with the latest device and upgraded OS, the operations are crippled enough that it might as well be considered as a dumb phone.

Here's hoping sprint gets an iPhone this fall...
 
nokia3310.jpg


loved it!, ring, text and you could even play snake!!


ofcourse if i had the choice i would obviously pick my samsung galaxy s2 ahead of this beauty, however the nokia at the time, did what you needed a phone to do, ring and make texts. and i could live with just that , even now.
 
ritmomundo said:
so then what do you do on it? the majority of people would say "play games" or "check stuff online" or "emails/facebook/twitter"... nothing that really means they are smart, or part of a "smart generation"
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that guy isn't very smart, so don't listen to him ;)

seriously though, they are not ****in dumb phones, they were phones that did the job they were created to do and what the people at the time needed.


now peoples needs have obviously grown, and the technology and progression shows that.
 
Oh god I will die first.
My first smartphone ever was a Nokia 6600. Pretty sweet phone for its times, plus I had a bunch of apps.
I couldn't use simple phones nowadays. I was forced to use a Nokia with a sliding keyboard when my iPhone 3G died. Luckily I got an iPhone 4 a week later.
 
JoeG4 said:
I hate to say this, but a really well-done clamshell phone can make a much better phone than an iPhone can.

Why?

Your phone rings, you open it. You're done, you close it and it hangs up. Need to call a random number? Open it, type in number, hit green button. Close phone when done. Need a quick contact? You've programmed it into the 2-9 keys right? Hold said key down. Make your phone call, close phone.

Simple clamshell phone + oldschool iPods.. they were bigger, clunkier devices, but they did what they did really well. I will agree in many cases phone book syncing sucked, but it wasn't always that bad.

What we have now, is a small and pretty device that can do everything you could want it to do and more, but it can't do any of those things quite as well. Quickly hitting a contact that most of your calls goes to requires going into a menu, and the dialpad requires hitting a menu, and the pictures come from a tiny CMOS sensor that really sucks compared to a decent compact camera sensor. The music app is also in a menu, and unless you have a car with a (somewhat glitchy) iPod syncing system, you will probably risk wrecking your car to change the track while driving, a task that could have been done while blindfolded with an old iPod.

In fact, you could take a picture (albeit rather pointless one) while blindfolded, with a compact camera.

You could play music with a classic iPod while blindfolded, and control it fairly well too.

You could place and receive many calls with an oldschool clamshell phone blindfolded.

Won't be able to do any of those particularly well with any smartphone, sadly.

So yea, and no.. If I had to go back to a dumbphone I'd kinda miss the smartphone, especially when waiting for doctor appointments, but in some ways having the internet available at all times really screws with me as a person.

One thing I am deeply afraid of as a college student, is that cellphones - smart or dumb - will give any future employer of mine the sense that they own me hook line and sinker. That's frightening! If your employer offers you a phone you might wanna RUN because who the hell wants to hear from their employer when they're off the clock and not obligated to handle work ****?
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Reality that nobody will ever admit...

I've used quite a few "smartphones". Know what the commonality is? They SUCK as phones. I'm talking, actual PHONES. Voice quality, speakerphone quality, dialing speed, address book, Bluetooth (in some cases), redial...are all a subpar experience compared to what some refer to as "dumb" phones.

A good example. I use the HTC Thunderbolt. Honestly I don't know why I own the phone, but I like it for some mysterious reason. However there are illogical things about it when trying to use it as a phone. Wind noise makes it to where the person can't hear me at all, even slight wind noise. The dialpad covers up the speakerphone button, so you have to minimize that first before you can put speakerphone on. Speakerphone's quality is a dice roll, sometimes it's good and sometimes it isn't. Since the dialpad is not physical, you can't quick dial voicemail or whatever without going into the "phone" area. I could go on and on, but in some ways it's way more annoying.

Compare that to such classics as the Sanyo SCP-5000, or my personal favorite, the NEC HDM, where they just worked. I have the LG flip phone from T-Mobile for my job and for calls it just works. Simple things like tapping the call button twice to redial. Even the RAZR and the StarTac were just better phones.

Fortunately, phone calls are far and few in between for me these days, but just agreeing that when it comes to actual PHONE usage, most "smartphones" aren't good.
 
The only phone I'll ever need . . .

Now this is a phone . . .

. . . You damn kids! Get off my lawn! :D
 

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I could go back, though I probably wouldn't use my phone very much anymore. I probably couldn't go back to a flip phone. I'll take that $15 Nokia bar phone instead of a Moto Razr
 
I am mainly interested in the mini computer in my pocket aspect of the iPhone versus the phone capabilities. ;)

So no, I could never go back to a dumb phone.
 
SRLMJ23 said:
I know for a fact I could never go back to a "dumb phone", I used my grandparents phone today, just some old style flip phone, felt like I was calling from a rock!

There is just zero options on those phones AND they don't have the retina display which is absolutely amazing not to mention all the apps at our disposal.

Just curious if any MacRumors members could or have gone back to a "dumb phone"??
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I run my life on my i4, it runs my personal & business email & calendar via Exchange (handy as I have an iPad too).

My favourite gadget of all time? Without a doubt.

I've also just moved networks from Vodafone to 3 (UK) and I now get not only great speeds (5/6Mbps on average), but also truly unlimited data!

3 also allow tethering/Personal Hotspot AT NO EXTRA CHARGE, which is invaluable to me (I'm posting this from my iPad tethered to my phone!).

In short, could I "go back"? No.
 
I chose to dump my iPhone for a 'dumb' phone about a year ago. Wanted to simplify technology's role in my life, as I found the iPhone very distracting. Sure, there are times when I wish I had an iPhone -- but overall it was a good choice for me.
 
Capt Underpants said:
I chose to dump my iPhone for a 'dumb' phone about a year ago. Wanted to simplify technology's role in my life, as I found the iPhone very distracting. Sure, there are times when I wish I had an iPhone -- but overall it was a good choice for me.
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Eh..not to be critical but life is distracting no reason to lock your self away in your house! Just find a way to manage better (know this to well having ADD haha :p). But I gotcha I actually let my family use my iPad (original) because I felt I had too much tech and it got distracting but I will always have to have some type of mobile device. Its not only my iPod, phone, but also my PDA ;):D:apple::apple:
 
Capt Underpants said:
I chose to dump my iPhone for a 'dumb' phone about a year ago. Wanted to simplify technology's role in my life, as I found the iPhone very distracting. Sure, there are times when I wish I had an iPhone -- but overall it was a good choice for me.
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Thats a interesting choice, nowadays smartphones are what we can call Adult pacifiers. We see people checking their phones all the time, for news, for mail, for text, for connections with their friends and with other people meanwhile at the same time we kinda ignore what's going on around us.

Smartphones are great, but as everything it should have a moderate use;)
 
Capt Underpants said:
I chose to dump my iPhone for a 'dumb' phone about a year ago. Wanted to simplify technology's role in my life, as I found the iPhone very distracting. Sure, there are times when I wish I had an iPhone -- but overall it was a good choice for me.
Click to expand...

I can understand that because I know how often I zone out just suring on my phone.

I now put my phone in my backpack when I am in class so it is harder to get to during class so I can not check it. During the break I wipe it out and do things on it it but I complete understand it.

I also know for me I could not give up a smart phone because email is so nice to get any where and I know while I was working or when I am on long drives it is nice to pull out the phone and read news/surf a little when I took lunch. While I was working that little bit during lunch was my way to decompress for a little bit.
 
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