One year of using a flipphone

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I celebrated my one-year anniversary of replacing my iPhone with a flipphone a few weeks ago. It was an exciting milestone for me, but I've been very busy with Life recently so I wasn't able to write about it until now. I finally found some free time, so I want to share my experience for anyone else who's considering making the switch too.

Why use a flipphone in 2025?

I started reading up on the "dumbphone" movement in the fall of 2024. At that time, I was growing less and less content with how mobile platforms were evolving - social media was getting enshittified [1], LLMs were starting to be forced into many apps and operating systems, and both cell towers and social media posts were being used to track protesters after events [2][3].

Even more importantly, a growing body of research was showing me that smartphones were damaging to people's attention spans. One study that impacted me the most was from 2023: test participants showed worse cognitive performance in the mere presence of a smartphone, even if they weren't using it [4]. I was in my last semester of college at the time, so the effects on attention resonated with me deeply - I didn't need research to show me just how easily my peers and I could be distracted by constant connectivity.

However, none of that led me to explore dumbphones. The actual driver was my interest in retro tech and "low-tech" solutions to modern problems [5]. Society expects us to always be connected, so using a phone is inevitable. However, flipphones and other feature phones offer a way to stay connected without all of the problems of modern smartphones.

In my view, dumbphones reduce transient data collection from ad agencies and social media apps - Facebook can't track my travels if I don't browse the Internet everywhere I go. I don't use social media sites much anymore, but forcing myself to use those sites on a desktop gives me much more control to limit ads and trackers than I have on a mobile app or a mobile web browser.

Dumbphones also affect peoples' attention far less than smartphones. While I haven't found any research on this, I've found a lot of anecdotal evidence that people focus better when using a dumbphone as their daily driver instead of a smartphone:

...when I'm on my iPhone, I'm a terrible parent. I'm mentally absent and am always distracted from my toddlers who love me and just want to hang out with me. I don't want them to always just see me on a phone ignoring the world. (deleted Reddit user) [6]

i find myself more present and less anxious without a smartphone, and i find myself bored a lot, but that's a good thing as it gives my brain time to rest which is hard to find in a busy world, and while i still use social media (reddit) / mastodon on my laptop (which i am trying to reduce), at least im not connected everywhere, so i feel like i kinda enjoy the world around me more and not be constantly bombed with things that algorythms think that i should want. (Reddit user Error_HackedKitten) [6]

Yes, you can strip your smartphone of TikTok, Instagram, X or whichever siren’s song you can least resist. But you can’t make your smartphone stop being smart, which means that it, much like your smart friends, will always have something interesting to offer. The dumbphone has almost nothing interesting to offer. There’s no need to resist temptation, because there is no temptation. And, finally, you’re free. (Molly Roberts, Washington Post) [7]

So in December 2024, I decided to experiment with using a dumbphone as my daily driver. I figured that I would use it for a year and then evaluate whether the experience was worth sticking with. If all else failed, I could always move my SIM card back into my old phone.

Buying a dumbphone

Fortunately, we are spoiled for choice for dumbphones in the mid 2020s. I won't go into the options myself - the Dumbphone Finder website [8] and the /r/dumbphones subreddit [9] have better in-depth discussions of the current offerings. I will talk about my choice, though: the Nokia 2780 Flip [10].

The Nokia 2780 is a surprisingly capable flipphone, and a popular option for dumbphones in the US. It includes 4G connectivity with Wi-Fi calling, Bluetooth and a 3.5mm jack (in 2026!) for audio, and Wi-Fi hotspot support for emergencies. It includes a limited version of Google Maps for looking up business addresses and hours, as well as an *extremely* limited web browser if the need ever arises. However, it doesn't include any social media or other messaging apps. To me, it was a great deal for $90 (in December 2024).

I chose the 2780 because it felt like a good balance between disconnection and utility. It still had the tools I felt that I needed to navigate and exist in the world, but by design, it wasn't going to enable me to distract myself. I also liked the idea of using a flipphone instead of a rigid "candybar" phone - it looked cool, it seemed ergonomic, and it resonated with the part of my brain that demands fidgeting.

Like many feature phones, the Nokia 2780 runs on KaiOS instead of Android or iOS. KaiOS [11] is a derivative of Mozilla's Firefox OS, a browser-based project that competed with Android in the mid-2010s [12]. The OS is designed to run on very limited hardware (though the OS still isn't very fast), and it allows for very simple app development using HTML5 instead of Java or Swift. It would take me some time to get used to KaiOS, but it ended up being very sufficient for what I need it for - which isn't much other than texting and calling.

Other people use KaiOS for more than just disconnection, though. KaiOS's goal is to "[make] the internet accessible through light and affordable mobile technology" [13] - a noble goal that I wholeheartedly support. A stable phone number and internet access are considered essential for living in the United States and elsewhere, so anything that makes those assets easier for people to access feels like a win to me.

My experience in 2025

So, how was using a flipphone in 2025 for me?

The good

The biggest change that I noticed was that I was far more present when out and about. Before, I would spend a lot of time looking at my phone while out in public - partially as an anxiety response to avoid a lot of the tiny interactions that we have with strangers on the daily, and partially to fill my need for constant activity. Using a dumbphone helped me disconnect and gave me more control over how and when I engage with technology. I feel more connected to the world around me now when I'm out of the house, and my friends and I talk more and enjoy the awkward silences more instead of retreating to our phones during conversation.

It's also been interesting to live without constant access to a search engine. I can't easily search up the answers to my questions while out of the house anymore - I have to either plan ahead by taking notes in my notebook at home, or think through questions myself or with my friends.

I think that the grounding effect of my dumbphone was its biggest benefit to my life, but it wasn't the only one. My phone now has incredible battery life compared to my old iPhone 12 mini (though the 12 mini was never known for having a long-lasting battery [14]). I typically go five or six days between charges if I leave my phone on 24/7, or over a week if I'm disciplined about turning off my phone before bed. And unlike most smartphones, the battery can be replaced without tools once it gets old, as well as the SD and SIM cards.

I expect that other kinds of repairs are also easier for this phone than most smartphones, since it's built with screws instead of glue where possible. However, I wasn't able to find any repair guides from iFixit or elsewhere to confirm this. Fortunately though, the phone's price tag and its physical SD and SIM cards will make it easy to switch phones if this one gets irreparably damaged. As an advocate for sustainable tech, I want this phone to last as long as possible; but from a practical standpoint, there's far less need to repair my device if it's cheap to replace and doesn't have any onboard data to lose.

I also like my dumbphone for its utility. It might not do everything like tablets and smartphones can [15], but I've still been saved multiple times by its ability to work as a Wi-Fi hotspot. I'm also grateful that it works as a Bluetooth-enabled MP3 player, though I'm working on refurbishing an iPod to meet that need soon. (I could ramble about how each device should only do one thing and one thing well, but I'll save that for another time.)

Lastly, my flipphone's been a great conversation starter with strangers. More and more people I've talked to have commented that they wished they could ditch their smartphone like me. I hope they can someday, but I understand why it's a difficult proposition for some.

The bad

Unfortunately, many businesses and services expect the average person to have 24/7 access to a smartphone. I never considered it before switching to a dumbphone, but the friction is very obvious now. I was able to replace some of the tasks that I used my smartphone for with other low-cost devices - a Garmin GPS, a notepad, an old Kodak point-and-shoot handed down by my family. However, none of that helps me at restaurants that only offer QR-code digital menus, or with websites that enforce 2FA without supporting SMS 2FA (likely a good call [16]) or physical security keys. I expect that I'll find new and more exciting pain points as time goes on.

Another major downside of my Nokia is that it only supports SMS for messaging. SMS is notoriously insecure [16][17], so many smartphones and smartphone users have moved to end-to-end encrypted platforms like WhatsApp, Signal, or the RCS protocol. Unfortunately though, WhatsApp dropped support for KaiOS in June 2024 [18][19], and no other encrypted messaging platforms have released apps for KaiOS.

(No WhatsApp support is a moderate inconvenience for me, but a fatal flaw for folks in other countries without widespread access to unlimited data. WhatsApp and similar Wi-Fi messaging apps are essential in places with poor cell tower bandwidth [20][21], so losing WhatsApp support was a dealbreaker for users that relied on KaiOS outside of the US.)

I could fix the secure messaging issue myself by implementing a Matrix [22] client for KaiOS, but I've found that Nokia's devices aren't as hackable as I had hoped. Nokia doesn't allow root access to its devices, which makes it harder for users and developers to download and "sideload" apps from places other than the official KaiOS app store. It's possible to re-install KaiOS entirely to remove these restrictions [23], but this is a high barrier to entry that's kept me from tackling the project, let alone users that are less technically inclined.

Reflection

I think ditching my smartphone was mostly a success. I like having more control over my attention span and my privacy, and I want to keep using my dumbphone as I go into 2026. I hope that I convince other people to give a dumbphone a try too this year, especially with the rising resentment against Big Tech and the other major players in the smartphone ecosystem.

My Nokia 2780 is still going strong. Its battery life is just as good as it was when I first bought the phone, and the phone hasn't sustained any damage other than a few scratches. I've looked at the Sunbeam F1 Horizon [24] as a more premium upgrade if my Nokia breaks, but I suspect that I won't need to worry about that for years.

I do still use my smartphone for two kinds of apps, though: 2FA apps and dating apps. Both of these have physical equivalents - security keys and going outside more - but I am falliable like every other person. Hopefully this year I can channel my frustration against the state of technology into the willpower to turn my smartphone off for good.

Published 2026-01-10.