phones With so many phones on the market, why isnt there anything as barebones as possible?

[acmelite]

I currently have a Samsung Galaxy A20, and I absolutely despise it, but due to circumstances beyond my control ive been forced to have a smartphone the last few years. But next year ill finally have the freedom to chose for myself so I have been looking for phones that actually suit the minimal amount of features I want.

 

I have been looking at ones like the Nokia 110, but the 4G version, which is the only one that really has a hope of working in North America beyond a year, still for some reason has a Camera, Internet, GPS, and plenty of other things which I absolutely do not want. I had thought of just opening it up and ripping the hardware required for those functions out, but lack the requite tools and skill. 

 

Is there anything ive perhaps missed? and why aren't there truly basic phones available outside of Europe?

 

Only if i had the money to buy a bunch of SDR's to setup my own 2G cell network, then i could just use one from 20 years ago.

[Middcore]

Because there is no market for them. 

[jaslion]

The Usa has moved to voip 4g calling so you always need a 4g modem wich automatically makes a phone internet capable.

 

There is no market for these so they aren't made. If you don't want a internet capable phone just don't use it. Tape of the camera's or something idk. Get some cromulent thingy that is barely functioning :p.

 

Or like worst case just get some random easy to custom rom smartphone, dump a bare lineage os on it and that stuff doesn't talk to things because it's base level android. Plenty of people that make COMPLETLY locked down os's making a smartphone basically a dumbphone.

[OhioYJ]

1 hour ago, acmelite said:

Is there anything ive perhaps missed? and why aren't there truly basic phones available outside of Europe?

There are? My father-in-law doesn't want a smart phone either, he still carries a brand new "flip phone". Don't want a flip phone, they make standard phones still. You don't have a huge selection, but they do have a selection, without getting into anything too obscure (just sticking to brand names).

 

Nokia 225 - Is this not sort of what you are looking for? This you may even find at a local BestBuy or other similar electronics store if you're lucky.

 

Nokia 2780 - Flip style phone, this is pretty basic too?

[acmelite]

1 hour ago, OhioYJ said:

There are? My father-in-law doesn't want a smart phone either, he still carries a brand new "flip phone". Don't want a flip phone, they make standard phones still. You don't have a huge selection, but they do have a selection, without getting into anything too obscure (just sticking to brand names).

 

Nokia 225 - Is this not sort of what you are looking for? This you may even find at a local BestBuy or other similar electronics store if you're lucky.

 

Nokia 2780 - Flip style phone, this is pretty basic too?

Ive looked at both the 225 and 2780 previously, for some reason they are worse than some others as they have things like facebook, whattsapp, and google programmed in. Which is incredibility annoying as the 2G versions of those phones, which work in Europe and will for quite a bit longer all dont have that crap.

[acmelite]

2 hours ago, jaslion said:

The Usa has moved to voip 4g calling so you always need a 4g modem wich automatically makes a phone internet capable.

 

There is no market for these so they aren't made. If you don't want a internet capable phone just don't use it. Tape of the camera's or something idk. Get some cromulent thingy that is barely functioning :p.

 

Or like worst case just get some random easy to custom rom smartphone, dump a bare lineage os on it and that stuff doesn't talk to things because it's base level android. Plenty of people that make COMPLETLY locked down os's making a smartphone basically a dumbphone.

I don't know why north america is like this, or why Canada seemingly blindly follows what the US does infrastructure wise. Europe still maintains 2G service and will for quite a bit longer.

 

as for the faffing about with the OS, how easy would that be to someone with really no technical skill at all, outside of analog stuff.

[OhioYJ]

2 hours ago, acmelite said:

as for the faffing about with the OS, how easy would that be to someone with really no technical skill at all, outside of analog stuff.

As someone who only runs custom ROMs, if you aren't that technical, I'm would say don't. It's likely to be frustrating. Lineage makes it's pretty straight forward, as their instructions are fairly detailed, but you are expected to know how to use ADB, fastboot, etc. If you run into problems getting these working, it will be frustrating. Also if something goes wrong, usually many devices can be recovered, from a "bricked" state, but again you need a some know how.

 

These are all things you can learn, as we all started some where, and the community is generally pretty helpful. However from your post this doesn't sound quite like what you are looking for.

 

To give you an idea, here are the install instructions for Lineage for the phone I'm currently carrying daily. Every device is different, but you can glance through it, and see what you think. I think that device is a fairly straight forward install.

[jaslion]

13 hours ago, acmelite said:

I don't know why north america is like this, or why Canada seemingly blindly follows what the US does infrastructure wise. Europe still maintains 2G service and will for quite a bit longer.

 

as for the faffing about with the OS, how easy would that be to someone with really no technical skill at all, outside of analog stuff.

Pick a phone (check the EXACT modrl nr as for eg your a20 is modable but not every version), follow the lineage os guide and well kinda done?

 

Its mostly setting up adb and fastboot that take the longest. Once thats done its pretty straight forward and just waiting.