Ask Lemmy

Bring back sliders with full keyboards

motorola razr

Nokia 3310

I always liked the color.

I always thought this was such a cute phone

I would not call these on the picture "dumb phones" though.

I had a Motorola phone. I actually liked it because it had a really good camera. The native photo editor was also top notch at the time.

I had a pink Moto SLVR L7

A Nokia 3100 ... it was the first phone I bought, and I kept it through college and beyond.

The thing was a beast :-)

128x128 pixel screen, with 12-bit RGB. No WiFi, no Bluetooth. Had some web access with WAP (no not that! "Wireless Access Protocol"). It did have a camera module though /rofl

And best of all, the battery lasted a week!

LG Env, I actually miss it.

I wish phones would go back to being unique. I want a slider with a physical keyboard (like the HTC EVO Shift). My Pixel 6 Pros battery is showing wear already but there's nothing on the market I feel is worth switching to.

LG enV... Clamshell phone with a full keyboard when opened... God, that phone was awesome

I had the Envy 2, the last phone I had with an actual physical keyboard.

It's the one feature I miss the most. If I could have smartphone functionality with a physical keyboard I would be much happier.

I had this sick LG car phone and it made vroom vroom sounds. Used it for a decade and I still have it and it still works.

This isn't my hand but I had this lovely bastard:

I used to be able to chuck it down the stairs and everything.

Does BlackBerry count as a dumb phone? I have a hard time calling it a smart phone.

SonyEricsson w810i. It was a great phone and an upgrade from my earlier SonyEricsson T610. The w810i is in my bedroom drawer.

I got the first Android smart phone after those (G1/Dream) which I still have in my kitchen drawer.

Happy memories texting my mates in uni. God so much has changed in 20yrs. 😱

A Samsung slider. I remember watching the Matrix the first time, and when that phone popped open to reveal the keypad it was mind-blowing. Getting a slider phone a few years later was so satisfying.

I think it was my Motorola Razr, then I got a Black Berry Bold, or some such. So yeah, the Razr.

Sony Ericsson W580i

I can't for the life of me remember what it was called, or who made it. It was a phone with a full keyboard, and instead of sliding the keyboard out it opened like a little laptop. When it was closed, it was a shiny silver blank rectangle with a display that would shine through when a call was made or when someone called me.

There were so many cool unique phones before Basic Rectangle With Button took over.

LG enV Touch. The thing was actually awesome. Music player was dope, touchscreen worked well, full physical keyboard, and the browser could load Flash. The web browser wasn't perfect but was on par with the blackberry of the time.

Don't remember exactly what it was, but I think it was Samsung and was one of the ones where you slid it up to access the keypad. I got it around middle school as a hand-me-down from my dad. I thought it was the absolute coolest thing at the time, despite that was around when my parents were upgrading to smart phones. I'll definitely have to look it up to see what it was.

Edit:

On GSMArena there is 66 pages of different model Samsung phones and plenty that you slid up to access the keypad. Finding the exact model would be like finding a straw of hay in a needle stack, so I'm giving up after 14 pages.

I miss slide out keyboards. Touch typing is trash bro.

I'm surprised I haven't seen Sidekick II here. I think that was one of my last ones via T-Mobile before the first LG Android phone came out.

Sony Ericsson W810i. Got it in 2007, I think. When it started to die on me in late 2009 i replaced it with an iPhone 3G, which was my first apple phone. It was also my last apple phone as I hated how locked down everything was.

EDIT: I just remembered I had a secondary dumbphone around 2012 or thereabouts. It was a dual SIM nokia of some sort that I used mainly as a backup phone in case my main ran out of battery while I was on the move.

The last phone I had before I got an Android phone was an LG EnV2. I still have the thing, it still turns on though no networks support it and the battery is toast. Sometimes I just hold it in my hand for a few minutes because it's just such a nicer thing to interact with than my S10e.

I don't really count it as a "dumb phone" though. I had some Samsung slider before that that really was a "Camera phone." Effectively no web browser, no app ecosystem at all, you could barely get the pictures it took out of it. The EnV2 was USB, there were games and things you could get for it, it had some email and web capability.

Then I got my LG Ally phone running some android version from before they started naming them after sweets, and it's all been downhill from there.

The Samsung SCH-U740

It was a good one! It literally flipped 2 ways.

An Apple iPhone! Hahaha, I kid. . . . . I use Arch, btw.

A Moto Razr I think, my first smartphone was a Palm Centro.

Depends on "how dumb?" I had a Motorola RZR before my first iPhone(2), then before that, some camera flip phone (Motorola E815), and before that, an SCH-3500 flip phone. Before that, land lines only.

Just had look at it, a Sony IT-B3 wall-hung. Never needed charging. So dumb it could only memorize phone numbers. Used it once or twice a week.

Finally got a free Android when digital got under $20/mo.

It is interesting that a phone with querty keyboard, web browsing and camera is called a dumb phone.

A Nokia Ngage , it was a Gameboy phone combo

Last time in my life that I was cool.

I miss my Alias 2, best phone I've ever owned.

https://www.cnet.com/reviews/samsung-sch-a950-verizon-wireless-review/

This beast. Yeah, it has an mp3 player in it so I could put all my tunes from Kazaa on there.