Any chance of doing a test on dumb phones which are at least 4G (I don’t think there are any 5G, but 3G ones are still being sold). IN most cases they are cheap as chips but there are varying reports by users in other forums as to reliability, voice quality etc… in other words, devices which are actually phones with no frills. Many are sub $100. For example Nokia’s 105 and 110 called “feature phones” but which have very few features…
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I think Choice reviews ‘dumb’ mobile phones. They seem to be mainly targetted at seniors and kids. The former perhaps not interested in the Internet, and the latter who should be kept off it for their own safety.
In my case, I have a ‘smart’ mobile that I keep dumb. It’s almost never connected to the Internet via the 4G network. It connects via my Wifi for Whatsapp mainly.
But I use apps available on the smart phone. Like GPS tracking, and storing photos, documents, etc. None of which need Internet access.
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It is subscriber content, last updated in March 2023.
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Dumb phones are known as ‘feature’ phones, for some unknown reason. The “lack of” is silent / invisible?
More seriously, some might have a secret and unwanted ‘feature’ built in.
Here’s a rather alarming article from Kaspersky about dumb phones arriving with malware already added by someone along the line, perhaps the manufacturer (one hopes not, if it’s a known brand, like Nokia) or a distributor. They found, by examining the phones, that some of them are ‘calling home’ to an unidentifiable website via the internet (even if the device wasn’t supposed to be able to access the internet) and sending the user’s details there.
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@SueW, given the Kaspersky article, I’d be wary of unfamiliar brands … and as far as I can tell, not many of the big phone manufacturers apart from Nokia are bothering with dumb phones (yet, anyway).
One hopes Nokia dumb phones don’t come with the added malware.
If I were seeking a dumb phone, I’d probably look at the Nokia 2660 Flip because I’d be seeking something that’ll easily tuck into a pocket. [That link is to Bing Lee, and all the reviews are ‘from a promotion’, so I wouldn’t take much notice of them.]
Full specs for the 2660
show that it does have 4G LTE.
Any 5G phone would be a lot more expensive than 4G at this stage. For a dumb phone, 5G wouldn’t add much value, given that voice and text don’t need even 3G speeds and you presumably don’t want or need fast downloads for a dumb phone.
For the future … I don’t think 4G is likely to be phased out any time soon. But who knows?
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5G is no good to me, none here. I’m home most of the time, and don’t need the speed for downloading, esp on the phone. I have an iPhone but am looking toward a time when I may have to give up my mac/iOS addiction. I looked at the 2660, I’ll look again.
And nope. I had forgotten about gsmarena, its a great site. But in using phone finder I found that no dumb phone will suit because here I need to be able to have wifi calling. Not considered to be a black spot, and yet…
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In that scenario, it may be that the only way to make the phone secure is to disable “data” (/“internet”) at the telco end. Telcos may not have much of an incentive to provide such a plan / to provide such a feature. I haven’t looked recently. Is that a possibility with any telco?
I think this would be a good feature for a plan for a child too i.e. want the child to be able to “phone home” but don’t want spyware to be able to “phone home”.
There is some risk though that once you disable the internet, MMS won’t work any more (whereas SMS may still work). If that is the case, that may or may not be a problem for any given customer.
In some respects, it may be better to have a smart phone and then dumbify it (as @Gregr has done). At least then you may have the possibility of controlling “phone home” at the phone end, assuming that the core operating system is trustworthy.
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We have a similar problem. Very poor 4G signal and no 5G at all, although our Canberra suburb has 5G everywhere but a tiny area of maybe two dozen houses that includes ours. The nearest tower is downhill from us, and we happen to be just on the other side of the top of the hill. Wouldn’t you think they’d try to locate towers on the highest points?
Most of the calls I make or receive while at home go via wifi calling, I’ve noticed.
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My suspicion is that VoWiFi has been adopted to avoid the telcos having to up their infrastructure.
Our house is in a spot with highly variable signals from hour to hour and minute to minute. The towers are only 1.5km distant but like yourself we are on the other side of a modest hill from them. Usability has improved considerably since VoWiFi but I found I need to stay in solid WiFi range for acceptable voice quality.
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