A few days ago my, half phone half duct tape, samsung outdoor phone broke. Ever since then I have been asking myself if switching back to a smart phone is worth the huge cost. I owned a htc hd2 years ago. Sadly I destroyed the htc after one year and I had to get a cheap alternative. Back then I noticed that I don't necessarily need the features of a smartphone. The things I really need from a phone are the ability to listen to music, write sms and make calls.
On the other hand everyone has a smartphone. When I am traveling or commuting with my friends, they often just look at their phone and are not interested in making conversation at all. So if I forget to bring a book, I find myself often sitting very bored in the train watching out the window. Navigation is also a very strong plus point for a smartphone, since I sometimes get lost in big cities or country sides. In school we also have to use our smartphone fairly often to research certain topics and sometimes it’s hard to find someone who let me use their phone for a few minutes or wants to work together.
I have money left from my holiday job witch I originally wanted to use for a server upgrade at home and to get a nice mechanical keyboard. Now I have to decide if I want to get a smartphone and wait with the upgrade till I get my next job or to get a cheap phone (nokia 3310 maybe) in combination with a audio player.
What do you think? Worth it or not? and do you even have a smart phone?
Smartphone I would properly get (need micro sd slot):
Lenovo K900 or ZenFone 6
(Just in case somebody asks, I don't want do get a phone on contract because I don't want to be the slave of my carrier)
You could make your own phone... You'll need a Raspberry Pi, a mini-LCD, some sort of input, battery pack, and a SIM card module, and probably a Teensee module too. But otherwise if you don't want to do that and you want a phone that lasts forever, get a Nokia 3310. Or if you actually want smartphone features and you like Google spying on you, get a S5.
It's a tough one, if you are the type of guy that's going to drop/smash phones I can understand why you don't want to get a smart phone. The tricky thing is it's now quite hard to find a nice dumb phone. Before smart phones became popular it was quite easy to find a feature rich nice looking dumb phone. Now they are either real cheap, plastic featureless or big button granny phones.
One solution might be to get one direct from China. This one looks interesting http://www.banggood.com/Xiaocai-X6-1_77-inch-Waterproof-Outdoor-Mobile-Phone-With-Charger-p-918402.html
This one is a little more expensive, not sure if it's a smart dumb phone or a dumb smart phone...
Maybe look into some of the cheaper Motorola phones. The Moto E and Moto G specifically. They will probably be everything you ever need for the price if you want an actual smart phone. Otherwise those two that PendragonUK linked may be good, but might be a risky buy compared to the Moto E or G.
op you can find a nexus 4 or something like that for around $100. dont even pay for mobile data - download your map data locally and use wifi everywhere
That phone really seems like good option . I think For 50$ it will be worth a try, if it doesn't work out I can still buy a dirt cheap 3310. Thanks for your help!
Its been a longtime since I even thought about this as an option. I think the idea is fantastic. I mean so much of our lives are spent staring at screens for no reason. I would buy one of those cheap-O phones off Amazon from LG that have the old school LCD screens that are black and white. Also the Motorola V360 was awesome in the early 2000s.