In 2008, the mobile phone users all over the world saw a mobile phone that has the ability to connect you to the internet. Yes, the ‘internet communicator’ has changed the way people perceived mobile phones before its launch. Today, more smartphones are sold than phones with just the basic features like call, sms and multi-media player. But feature phones are still there and are still loved by people who really don’t need the internet in their daily lives.
Smartphones are good at multitasking. They can perform simple computing tasks, connect to the internet even when you are on the go and let you play popular games like Candy Crush, or Freefire. But they are pretty expensive, are larger in size and have shorter life. In fact, smartphones are susceptible to hacking and physical damage.
To many people, enjoying life through a smartphone sounds cool. But some of us still prefer to avoid mainstream lifestyle and buy dumb phones to keep internet and expenses to a bare minimum. Instead of a new iPhone Pro, or an Android flagship, they proudly flaunt a bar, flip, or a slider phone. They dislike the convenience of a device that puts the internet in their pocket. For a variety of reasonslike lower initial cost, better battery life, cheaper monthly plans, enhanced privacy, or a distraction-free, stressfree lifestyle — they adopt a dumb phone instead of a smartphone.
Indeed, feature phones or so called “dumb phones” are robust, have greater battery life and are not easily hackable. They let you make calls, send text messages and even take pictures on the go. These phones are really good enough for basic communications and need charging, maybe only once a week.
Why Some People Have Started Avoiding Smartphones:
Many people are tired of staying glued to their smartphones all the time. These phones are designed to seek your attention all the time. When you are around, you constantly look at it. When, you are not around, you feel anxious, most of the time for nothing. If the phone is not in your pocket, you panic and ruin your day. Digital addiction or obsession with smartphones and gadgets has become epic with a handful of new medical conditions that have arrived with this addiction.
1. Text Claw and Cell Phone Elbow
You know you have this painful condition called “Text Claw” which is a non-medical term used to describe all of the finger cramping and sore muscles that you get from continuous scrolling, texting, and gaming on smartphones. In extreme cases, using smartphones all the time causes inflammation in your tendons. This bad habit can make “Text Claw” worse and can cause medical conditions like tendonitis and carpal tunnel. A “Cell Phone Elbow” is the condition when you experience tingling or numbness in the ring and pinky fingers. This happens due to bending your elbow for long periods of time, say for a few hours of playing Freefire or scrolling through Facebook or Instagram.
If you have these conditions, do some stretches, bend your wrist backward, and so some wrist flexes. If some yoga doesn’t help, see a doctor for treatment.
2. iPosture and Text Neck
Another painful medical condition. Slouching over your phone for hours at a time is a torture on your neck and back muscles. “iPosture” or “Text Neck” describes the excessive stress on neck muscles. Research suggests that at least 84% of smartphone users, especially young adults experience this condition, mainly due to being hunched over smartphones, tablets, and computers.
Fixing your posture is the only way out. To relieve lower back pain, and limit your phone use. This will help you get rid of neck strain. Although it may look awkward, try to hold your phone directly out and in front of your face, not on your lap or near the chest where you might need to look down for minutes at a time.
3. Computer Vision Syndrome
Staring at the tiny font in your texts and scrolling through dozens of tweets causes eyestrain, blurred vision, dizziness, and dry eyes. To make your condition worse, a blurred vision can force you to look at your smartphone for minutes and cause sore neck muscles. A blurred vision with a sore neck is a sure shot recipe for headaches which may ruin your day, and force you to take over the counter medication frequently, which is not a good idea.
To avoid computer vision syndrome , make your phone’s font size bigger. Hold their phones at least 16 inches away from their faces. Look up from your screen every few minutes and look at something far away for short breaks. Don’t forget to blink as much as you can.
4. Nomophobia
If you panic or feel anxious when you find that your smartphone is not with you, you have this medical condition which is a short for “no-mobile-phone phobia”. This may sound ridiculous but this is the unnecessary fear of being without your cell. It is estimated that more than 60% of the population fears losing or being without their phones at any given time. Some of the symptoms of nomophobia include anxiety or negative physical symptoms as if you have lost or cannot use your cell phone, obsessively checking to make sure you have your phone with you, and constantly worrying about losing it somewhere. And a study found that women suffer from this more than men.
Consider doing some yoga and deep breathing before actually seeking medical help.
5. Phantom Pocket Vibration Syndrome
No call, no text, but all of a sudden do you feel that as if your phone just rang or vibrated? If you experience this often, you are not alone. A study suggests that at least 80% of the undergraduates experience phantom vibrations when their phones weren’t actually vibrating. The study also found that students who are glued to text messages and social media updates are more anxious and experience this more often.
A good way to break the addiction is to shut your vibration function off and try checking messages once or twice a day. Don’t keep your phone in your pocket, keep it in your bag. Stop checking your bag every five minutes.
Some people are sick of looking at their phone all the time. They can’t help it. From bed to bathroom they do everything while scrolling and tapping.
Social media and apps constantly bombard us by notifications asking us if we’ve “checked this out.”
Setting screen time limits, switching off as many notifications, and even investing in a smartwatch don’t help much. Nothing works for them really. Our life is hijacked by our smartphone and the companies behind it. We go to bed with a sense of anxiety and fatigue within us.
Perhaps s smarter dumbphone is the solution.
A big shiny touch screen and hundreds of cool apps won’t let you live in peace really. An old style keypad phone will. A small mobile phones with tiny keyboards, small screens, and relatively primitive interfaces may look downright dumb. But if you really think deeply, you will see that these phones are practically small computers with cameras and mp3 players for entertainment. They are really smart and don’t distract you with 5-6 notifications a minute.
When compared to today’s smartphones, these feature phones which were previously impressive gadgets look so funny in comparison. And yet, even today they are useful and will not give those previously mentioned medical conditions.
So here are 10 feature phones that can sometimes be a smarter choice than a smartphone
1. Longer Lasting Battery Backup with Nokia 105 Single SIM (Black).
People who have used feature phones will remember that the time when their so called “feature phone” battery lasted for more than a day, sometimes almost an entire week. But when they bought their first smartphone, they had to grow the habit of charging their phone pretty much every night.
Longer talktime and standby time is probably the biggest advantage of a dumbphone. How much you talk, or text, it seems to last forever! You will not regret even if you can forget to charge it at night because when you wake you will see that it still has enough power to survive all the way through. A small screen and absence of unnecessary apps running in the background make these phones incredibly energy efficient.
Nokia 105 features a 1.8-inch (4.57 cm) display, 14.4 hours talk time, 25.8 days standby time on a single charge, Wireless FM radio, 3.5 mm headphone jack, Store up to 2,000 contacts and up to 500 messages, and comes with one-year manufacturer warranty for the device.
2. With Nokia 216 (Black), You Have A Good Excuse Not To Respond To People.
Smartphone users spend a lot of time dealing with texts, calls, messages, and emails. Somebody always needs something to feel that he is actually doing something important and urgent – this is a trap. When you have a powerful smartphone in your pocket, the urge to respond right away and keep yourself alert and updated all the time possesses you — the mysterious desire to remain updated and connected through your smartphone, even when it’s probably not so critical as you assert.
Back in the days when dumb phones ruled the world, test messages weren’t treated with so much urgency. Unlike Whatsapp or facebook messenger users of today, in those days, you were not expected to respond to his or her texts right away. You had the excuse of unreliable SMS services and sometimes unreliable phones. Email service in phones was unreliable too. A dumb phone made it possible to ignore somebody, at least for a little while, if needed.
Nokia 216 has a 0.3MP primary camera with LED flash, Nickel-free surface, 6.096 centimeters (2.4-inch) QVGA display with 230 x 320 pixels resolution, 16MB RAM expandable memory up to 32GB, and dual SIM (2G+2G). It has a 1020mAH lithium-ion battery and comes with a 11 year manufacturer warranty for the device and 6 months manufacturer warranty for in-box accessories including batteries from the date of purchase.
3. With Samsung Guru FM Plus (SM-B110E/D, Black), Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat 24/7 Cannot Annoy You With Updates.
Many people shun their real life and enjoy updating their Facebook, almost like a maniac. Many remain busy taking photo after photo to share on Instagram. Some other folks like to continuously add new content to Snapchat spending sleepless nights. This is not life. With a dumb phone, you can avoid this highly damaging social media addiction and focus on your career and life goals.
Maintaining all of your social media profiles everyday is not fun, but rather much like a job. That indomitable urge only exists because of smartphones. Some of us have forgotten that we have the option of not uploading that cat pic on facebook while commuting back home by bus or car. This type of internet based activity can easily wait until we reach home home, get fresh, and spend some quality time with our friends and family.
Samsung Guru FM Plus has a Simple and Compact Design, Convenient and Easy to Use, Comfortable Viewing, MP3 Ringtones; Audio Playing Format: MP3, MIDI, and FM Radio.
4. A Lava A1 (White-Grey) will not distract you with tons of notifications.
A dumb phone are not as distracting as smartphones are. Smartphones are annoyingly distracting. You get notifications on the latest news, you get notifications for selfies posted by your friends and favorite influencers of your favorite social network, and if you play games, you get notifications from them too.
Keeping your smartphone offline is not an option for us. You may have noticed that youngsters are glued to their smartphones even while camping with friends or attending college lectures. But dumb phones or feature phones are not so addictive and distracting, although they come with a couple of arcade games, and choosing the right ringtone definitely needs some care and concentration.
Lava A1 is one such feature phone0.3MP primary camera with zoom, 4.6 centimeters (1.8-inch) QQVGA display with 128 x 160 pixels resolution, expandable memory up to 32GB and dual SIM, and a 800mAH lithium-ion battery. It also comes with a 1 year manufacturer warranty for the device and 6 months manufacturer warranty for in-box accessories including batteries from the date of purchase.
5. Feature phones like Nokia 3310 Dual SIM are much easier to figure out.
How long do you think you take to figure out all the features and functions of a smartphone after you do the unboxing? Very long indeed. Smartphones are pretty complicated and time consuming to figure out and use, especially for people with poor education, bad eyesight, shaky hands and old age. Feature phones are, and were a lot simpler machines.
There is nobody in the world who hasn’t had trouble finding and using the functionality or settings that they need. Smartphones are so much feature packed that it can be difficult for many to figure out where everything is and how everything works. Feature phones, on the other hand, are easier to use and maintain. You should not take more than half an hour to understand how to make calls, send and read texts and set the alarm.
Nokia 3310 Dual SIM comes with a 2.4-inch (6.1 cm) screen, 22 hours talk time, Rear camera, FM Radio, and MP3 player. The new Nokia 3310 is a tribute to the original classic, but with a twist.
6. Unlike smartphones, a Micromax X746 feature phone won’t need to be charged and recharged constantly.
A feature phone may not keep you connected to your world like your modern smartphone, but you may stop worrying about losing battery power and constant drainage of battery. Even the most expensive smartphones quickly drain out battery power and their battery backup doesn’t last long enough. Bright screens, sophisticated cameras, hi-fi apps, and fast 4G connectivity drain a smartphone’s battery.
Charging our smartphones every night has been a ritual for us, and sometimes we need to charge it even during the day. But a feature phone like X746 will not bother you much. You may forget to charge your phone for days, perhaps even a week, and still may have enough battery power to text your boss. In fact, modern dumb phones are not that dumb. They can serve you for much longer without a charge.
Micromax X746 feature phone flaunts a 3000mAh battery, Power Saving Mode, Power Torch Blink on Call, 6.1cm Screen, Dual Sim, Digital Camera, Auto Call Recording Folder Wise, Anti Theft and many more.
7. A Nokia 105 (Dual SIM, Black) feature phone is much cheaper than any smartphone.
Unlike many smartphones in the market, a feature phone like Nokia 105 Dual SIM would never cost you an arm and a leg. Although smartphones are becoming less and less expensive, their price will always be many times more than that of a feature phone.
Our education, age and income levels play a key role while we decide which phone is best for us. Smartphones are mostly preferred by young, educated, high income youths who like to remain digitally connected to the world and need a higher mobility. On the other hand, feature phones are still relevant to the low income users and the ones who don’t know how to use smartphones. Also many users are not comfortable with the touch phones while others are driven by factors like age, the need for a secondary device and limited user requirements like calling have kept the feature phone market alive.
Nokia 105 Dual SIM features a 4.572 centimeters (1.8-inch) display with 240 x 320 pixels resolution, S30+ operating system, 4MB RAM, 4MB internal memory, dual SIM (2G+2G)
800mAH lithium-ion battery and a 1 year manufacturer warranty for device and 6 months manufacturer warranty for in-box accessories including batteries from the date of purchase. The box does not include earphones.
8. Unlike your sophisticated smartphone, a feature phone like Nokia 800 Tough can withstand a lot of accidental drops and shocks.
A feature phone can take a lot more abuse than most smartphones which can easily get scratches and cracks on their huge touch sensitive screens. Although we love the big, bright screens on our smartphones, and we appreciate their sleek and lightweight design, we still appreciate dumb phones because they are so hard to break and their displays are so small. Users snap their phone open and closed without worrying that they’d damage it.
If you accidentally drop a Nokia 800 Tough on the floor, you may not come away with a broken screen. You can even go out with it on a rainy day and need not worry about water damage. It’s nearly impossible to carry something around all day, every day, without occasionally dropping it on the floor or splashing it in water.
The Nokia 800 Tough features IP68 water resistant and dustproof, drop protection and MIL-STD-810G compliant, Pre-loaded Facebook and WhatsApp, WiFi hotspot functionality, Up to 43 days of standby time from a single charge and Heavy-duty rubberized buttons for ease of use when wearing gloves.
9. Feature phones like SENIOR WORLD Dual SIM Easyfone Grand look unique.
A feature becomes the smartest solution when it is packed with bigger buttons, bigger text fonts, clear and loud sound with special technology & earphones that amplify sound ( for phone conversations, TV watching etc). Some modern feature phones are specially designed for senior citizens and they offer loud ringtone so that calls are not missed.
Big screen, minimal buttons, sleek look – smartphones look great, but they all look more or less similar and there’s not much variation in what big brands are manufacturing. But dumb phones often look unique. There are slider phones and brick phones and flip phones. Then there are phones like Easyfone Grand that are especially designed to make calling easier for senior citizens and people who are not capable of using a smartphone.
SENIOR WORLD Dual SIM Easyfone Grand features Dual Sim; 1050mAh Battery With BIS certification,works on 2G Рquad band ,has DUAL Sim slot; It has music/video player,Radio,Camera of 2MP, Stores Threaded view upto 90 SMS, Stores upto 500 contacts, Phone memory is 32MB; Battery : 1050mAh, BIS-certified, Lithium Battery, Standby time : Up to 150 hr. Talk Time : Up to 10 hr.; Resolution is 320*240, and has Flash light and Expandable memory support of 8 GB. It also has Speaker, Compatible with 3.5mm Audio jack.
10. A feature phone like Nokia 106 (Grey, Dual SIM) gives you less reason to worry about security.
A feature phone gives you a whole lot less to worry about when it comes to your security. In the wake of reported snooping attacks on smartphones owned by people who matter, using a feature phone with no internet connectivity won’t be a bad idea as they are hard to be targeted and hacked. As smartphones today present more danger than ever, researchers have found vulnerabilities that impact various apps of popular OS-based smartphones, presenting significant implications to hundreds of millions of smartphone users.
The Nokia 106 can be used for just basic calling and texting requirements. These basic features, no option to share data with other phones wirelessly, and little to no possibility of downloading and installing third party apps will keep you safe from the prying eyes of authorities and hackers looking to spy on your data.
Nokia 106 features a 1.8-inch (4.57 cm) display, 15 hours talk time, 21 days standby time on a single charge, Durable design with tough polycarbonate body, Store up to 2,000 contacts and 500 messages, and One-year manufacturer warranty for device.The box does not include earphones.
