Instead of Your smartphone
A phone that only makes calls
The most drastic swap on this page, and the only one people describe afterwards as a relief.
What it is
A handset that does calls, texts, an alarm and a battery that lasts a week. Some have a hotspot, so a laptop can still do the things that genuinely need a screen.
What you give up
- Maps and live transit. This is the one that hurts, and the one worth planning for.
- Two-factor apps — move these to a hardware key or a second device before you switch, not after.
- Camera quality, ride-hailing, mobile banking, boarding passes, QR menus.
- Group chats will carry on without you, and you will hear about it.
How to move
- 01Spend a week noting every time you actually unlock the phone and what for. The list is shorter and stupider than expected.
- 02Solve two-factor first. Everything else is inconvenience; this one locks you out of your own accounts.
- 03Buy a paper map of your own city, which sounds like a joke until the first time you need it.
- 04Tell people. Half the friction is other people assuming you saw their message.
- 05Keep the smartphone, charged, in a drawer, for the airline and the hospital car park. Two weeks in you will have stopped opening the drawer.