Smartphone makers will soon face an unlikely competitor. Concerns about the impact of social media are driving demand for old-school Nokia brick-like handsets…
I hope for something like the Motorola D lineup. You could take out the original battery and replace it for 4xAA batteries. That’s pretty cool.
A few months ago I was quite happy to finally win one functional handset, Motorola D170, in auction for just around €7 incl. shipping. Unfortunately, I always bring bad luck. The seller unexpectedly ended up in hospital and I got a refund.
The D170 even has a flip-out keypad cover which makes it even cooler. And all of these have extendable antennas.
A picture of D170 for illustration (not the same unit):
Otherwise the most available seems to be D520, but almost all of them are corroded and non-functional because people left batteries in them.
And they won’t work anymore with the retirement of analog years ago, 2G years ago, and now 3G for consumer use (I’m assuming that phone was analog/2G).
If I remember correctly, GSM900. The shutdown of 2G in my country is set at around 2028 - 2030, so I’d be good for a bit.
In other words, just like with my current phone that doesn’t work with VoLTE on my carrier because VoLTE is a total mess. This once again leaves me with 2G for phone calls. (Although I use LTE-only to prioritize data meaning nobody can call me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
Hell, my carrier hasn’t even yet implemented USSD over IMS which means no call barring settings, no call forwarding settings, no caller ID settings, no USSD codes and just everything else that uses MMI codes. All depends on GSM.
I don’t know why it is accepted that there’s no single mandatory standard for VoLTE that would work everywhere, but I guess people’s ability to put up with BS is just going up over time.
And yes, this impacts emergency services too, with US visitors, for example, even if the devices support VoLTE at home.
In my country, they’re planning to phase out 3G, while 2G is very unclear because of just how many things rely on it, not just phones.
