Comment by utopiah
1 month ago
Most of those "ideas" are basically :
- take a phone, remove features, package with bright colors, profit (or VC then profit, maybe).
Sadly a lot of those aren't recycling old gadgets, they are just making new ones and block features, lock down in their own "store", etc. I think it's actually quite terrible.
Yes, and dumbphones exist (again). You can buy a newer version of the Nokia 3210 that charges with USB-C and works on modern cell networks.
The main feature I want for my kids is an explicit allow list to keep them from gettin spam or talking to randoms.
The manual I found doesn't seem to have this feature. Also the advertising page has "Cloud Apps for news, weather, and more" :( https://www.hmd.com/en_int/nokia-3210?sku=1GF025CPD4L02
Yes you should check KaiOS phones for that.
Now the problem is that they're not "dumb" enough as they have a web browser, youtube etc, but that can be considered fine because the experience for those is so bad that it's unlikely to get addicting.
How about a PinePhone with DeltaChat?