Ask Lemmy

Bring back sliders with full keyboards

motorola razr

Nokia 3310

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 always liked the color.

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!

I always thought this was such a cute phone

I had a pink Moto SLVR L7

LG Env, I actually miss it.

Motorola Razr babyyyyy

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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. 😱

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

Sony Ericsson W580i

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.

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.

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.

A Nokia Ngage , it was a Gameboy phone combo

Last time in my life that I was cool.

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.

Nokia n70. Still think about it sometimes, it was a great little phone.

Motorola Pebl.

An LG EnV 3. The full keyboard was a must for new!

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

Some flip-phone from Sprint, though I can't even recall the name now. It had the ability to play text-based games and even snake! I think I was carrying a Palm Pilot near the end of that. It was an upgrade from the first brick I kept in my car for emergencies only. In 2004ish, I upgraded to a Siemens SX66 (Windows-based smartphone) and ditched the Palm Pilot. I continued to use Windows phones (I think I ended with an HTC Hero or something similar), until finally being convinced by borrowing a friend's old iPhone to get one of those. Was on iPhone from 3gs until 6plus. I made the jump to Android when Pixel 6 Pro came out, and that's what I still have today.

BlackBerry Pearl

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.

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

Sony Ericsson w810 -> iPhone 3g.

My First and last iPhone

How dumb? OG Motoroloa RAZR V3 > Nokia N96 before I had an iOS or Android device.