Poll of the Day > About to downgrade and go retro with a flipphone

(+) Yeah! (+)

Flipphones, remember those? lol

There are a variety of reasons. I feel like I've turned into a zombie over the years when I use my smartphone I am constantly glued to it like a lot of people.

Also I been using one of those cheap no contract carriers, and it appears that the last lady who had this phone# is somehow using Apple iCloud to maintain her texts; so sometimes I'll have gotten texts from her contacts and at least once she got a text from one of mine.

I finally had enough and responded in a group text from her associates for her deadbeat ass to get her own # and stop piggybacking off what is now mine, not quite that harshly, but I was trying to shame her into getting her own, fully separate phone# "in front of" her peers.

Beyond that I ran out of data on my high-speed plan, it was $5 for only 1 more GB until the next rollover but I never got it, and even if I would have it looks like they were counting my low-speed data I'd been using against me and I was only going to end up getting like .4 GB of high-speed data (if it had worked) anyway. AND I'd spent 45 minutes trying to resolve and woulda had to spend another hour or so after it got escalated up the tech-support Tree. F' that.

So I'm ditching the service (no contract), leaving my smartphone at my work as a sort of tablet, and gonna pick up a flipphone from a different low-cost carrier. I want to free myself from tech and other addiction.

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Flipphones are also more durable afa sustaining fall damage.

Also, they actually have "smart" flipphones now, but they're not -too- smart as to defeat the purpose.

For example they can play simple Youtube videos and pull up Google maps, but they are way too basic to be able to properly use anything like Facebook, other social media or basic web browsing. Which, in this case is what I want.

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T9 is a poweful tool.

I could write essays lightning quick with a dang blindfold on.

argonautweakend posted...

T9 is a poweful tool.

I could write essays lightning quick with a dang blindfold on.

I wasn't able to get the hang of it in the old days but I'll have to give it another go.

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over time you learn to memorize the letter positions and how many presses it takes.

or at least i did.

argonautweakend posted...

over time you learn to memorize the letter positions and how many presses it takes.

or at least i did.

Just like that scene from The Departed, right before smartphones took off!

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argonautweakend posted...

T9 is a poweful tool.

I could write essays lightning quick with a dang blindfold on.

yuuuup

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I replaced my 8-year-old flip phone ~2 years ago. As expected, I've made use of the smartphone's smartiness, but I do kind of miss the simplicity of my old one. Though texting is much faster now than with multitap (never bothered learning T9), and the camera is much better on my new one.

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You mean upgrade?

I had flip phones until 2 years ago. Literally saved a shit load of money on phone plans by surrendering to the Cult of the Rectangle with Rounded Corners.
Went from 2 lines w/ 700 min/month shared between lines, no texts, no data to unlimited calls, unlimited texts, and 6 GB data (that I don't use, lol) and still saved $20/month plus the phones were even cheaper.
The conspiracy to make people dumb by making their phones the smart one in the pairing is disgusting, but effective.

I miss my flip phone. It fit so much nicer in my pocket, and I dropped it like 100 times and it still fucking worked.

I really only replaced my flip phone because a piece broke off the hinge due to sheer age and I had to carefully open/close it with both hands to keep it from literally breaking in half. It had its share of tumbles, but those things were built to last.

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I still have an old flip phone, but I've been considering getting a smart phone. The convenience of gps and google maps would make traveling a lot easier. Also, it would give me a backup means of looking things up online when my computer inevitably runs into a problem.

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I had a flip up until about a year ago but I also carried an iPod touch for music and web stuff. That setup worked fine but then COVID increased the demand for better online communication so I just upgraded and combined the two to keep pace with everything.
I dont use voice commands, cloud services or any major social media because I dont need to.

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texts will probably be screwed up
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