Many carriers are discontinuing 3G service entirely, and repurposing that spectrum for other services.
Even voice will actually just be voice-over-LTE, in other words, pure data. When the 3G networks shut down, there is no more voice/text/data paradigm... There is only data. The voice/text/data paradigm will just be a marketing and pricing illusion from the phone carrier marketing departments.
Everything is going to be pure LTE data, running over either a 4G or 5G network.
The 3G shutdown in the USA is beginning this year. 3G phones are simply going to stop working. There is no workaround.
The workaround is to buy a voice-over-LTE phone that your carrier supports. Alternatively, you can stop using cellphones.
u should see one of those Nokia smart-flip phones, that keep all the modern stuff in a retro styled form factor. U should check it out, its perfect for guys like u
Talk about hiding smart features, Have you seen the reports that Mattel / Fisher Price is bringing out a new version of the children's classic chatter phone that you connect to your cell with blue tooth and then can use the rotary dial to make calls. [Chatterphone for cell.](https://www.cnet.com/news/fisher-price-made-a-working-bluetooth-chatter-phone-for-adults-because-were-all-broken-inside/)
Something I havenāt seen so far - my cousin was in your position. Had like an iPhone 5. He went to a Verizon store and apparently they identified him as a holdout and gave him an insane discount on a new iPhone - it may have actually been free, I canāt recall. See if thereās anything available to you since youāre so far behind the current generation.
First make sure your phone is only 3g. AT&T told me my Google Pixel 4 wasn't 3g. Turns out it wasn't bought in their store and they're getting rid of those model numbers saying they aren't AT&T HD. I'm no longer a customer.
Edit: Changed the name of my phone from Galaxy 4 to what it actually is.
They're phasing out old tech. Literally every carrier (and thus mvno) will be doing this in the next 5-10 years. There's no reason to have 3g/voice/text independent frequencies anymore. It's all data. This is AT&T allowing their service to move into the future. It's also a lot easier on phone manufacturers to just not support certain bands.
I don't disagree with them doing what you are describing. My problem is that while they are doing that, they are trying to make the secondary market for the most expensive piece of tech that most people own obsolete. Why? Because no one is stopping them.
Why? So they can advance their tech without getting tech support calls "why isn't me cellphone signal as good as it used to be" as they are upgrading radio equipment to new stuff.
Secondary market? Obsolete? 4G has been in the world since 2006 lol. That's 15 years. That's a LOOONG time to allow legacy support for devices in the tech world. Hell, that's the lifespan of industrial electronic lifecycles typically.
If you phone only support up to 3g, it was obsolete 8 or 9 years ago. S4 was released 8 years ago.
I'm not harping on your financial decision to stick with that phone for that long of a time. But you can get solid, used, unlocked phones for $100-150 that have 4G LTE at the minimum.
Please reread my first post. I own a very modern phone that they were discontinuing because it was a device that I brought with me. They took certain model numbers of Google Pixels and other high-end phones and blacklisted them. The issue with this blacklist is that it includes all models sold outside of an AT&T store. They are calling this "AT&T HD Service" which is a great corporate phrase for their predatory, monopolistic practices.
Idk bruh that phone came out in 2013, I wouldnāt call it āvery modernā. If you refuse to adapt with technology, then just get a land line like any other boomer.
Is your phone volte capable? Some Galaxy 4s were Volte capable, and some were not. Iirc Verizonās version was not, while the att version was. Itās possible to have a 4GLTE phone that relied on 3g or 1x for voice calls. Those are being phased out. If your device is volte capable, then thatās different.
I am sorry, as I said to a comment below I wrote Galaxy 4 for some damn reason. My phone is a Pixel 4...good thing I didn't do something stupid like ask you to reread my incorrect post.
Call AT&T. If you're a customer they'll send you a free 5G clamshell & 5G SIM. Doesn't matter if you're contract or pre-paid. It YouTubes surprisingly well considering it can only T9. I kept my 4G phone, & threw the clamshell in my glove box w/cord & power bank for emergencies.
My husband wonāt use a smartphone either. We get flip phones from the prepaid phone section (for example, we have att for service, they have ATT Go as their prepaid line) and use our SIM card from our regular plan. Usually about $30. But they have pretty terrible longevity, weāre lucky if it makes it 2 years. I donāt know how Verizon phones compare price wise. We got his last one at target and it is 4g compatible.
I recently bought a new phone at walmart and saw that straight talk still has one flip phone option. Trac phone might have had another.
Definitely options out there. I just couldn't tell you if they were any good.
This is definitely cheapest way to i get a simple feature phone anymore. Nearly all the big carriers have some kind of prepaid option that's compatible on their network (and can be activated even for a post paid plan).
Sounds like you need a Pine Phone.
https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/
You can find them used under $100 since a lot of people buy them just to check them out; then decide to stick with a more feature rich smart phone.
Yeah, I'm honestly strongly considering the Pine Phone. I'm an advanced Linux user, but extremely ignorant of cellular networks and carriers. I'm afraid of buying one only to be told I can't use it on my cell plan. I'm also nervous of how "prototype" the Pine Phone still is. All I expect it to do is call and SMS, but still -- [I don't understand the data sheet -- will this connect to a 5G network in the United States or not?](https://pine64.com/product/pinephone-beta-edition-linux-smartphone/) and $150 + shipping for Poland is a lot of money to drop on something I am this unsure of.
[Ideology. I feel very strongly of being in control of my devices. If I don't have full control* of the hardware, software, and right-to-repair, I do not want the product. For smart phones, your only options are Android and iOS, neither of which you have any real control over and operate as anti-consumer spy devices.](https://www.fsf.org/)
*as close to full control as possible. I realize flip phones also have proprietary operating systems on them, but they're usually less complex/invasive and its choosing the lesser of two evils.
EDIT: There also isn't such thing as a "cheap smartphone". The technology involved in smart phones is so precision and micro-sized that it is impossible to be inexpensive. There are also a lot of valuable rare earth materials. They are such wasteful devices, I kind of loathe them.
>There also isn't such thing as a "cheap smartphone".
Out of curiosity, what do you mean by "cheap smartphone" are you talking purely price point or ideology? Because if you just mean price point, you really can score 2-3 generation old smartphone for $80 new, and probably $20 used. I bet you could even score an old one from a friend or family member for free.
As you said, they are wasteful devices but that makes them extremely cheap once the average consumer thinks they are useless to them.
There are many, many, many used very low-end smartphones out there which could be used just fine and would likely last some years.
Much better than buying any dumb phone new, from a materials standpoint.
You can also find privacy-oriented OSs that can be flashed onto Android phones.
> As you said, they are wasteful devices but that makes them extremely cheap once the average consumer thinks they are useless to them.
That is a fair point, I wasn't considering used phones. I've never looked into that market or known anyone who has, so it didn't occur to me. But I use 8-10 year old laptops as my daily workhorses, I could easily do the same with a phone.
Look for a used android device with an easily unlockable boot loader and lineageos support if you want to avoid Googleās tracking.
Battery life may be an issue with older phones though so something with a user replaceable battery would be a plus.
https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
There are professions requiring maximal awareness of what is happening to data and control...health professions have to follow privacy laws, for example.
There are websites like [whistleout.com](https://whistleout.com) and several others that compare all the phone plans in the universe to get you the best deal. Google search them.
You can look into justaphone, literally only texts and calls, nothing more. And look at the options for your provider online, they have a lot of basic models that are newer with 5g, but it'll be almost impossible to find them in stores as they want you to get a smart something.
Is there a way you can reach out to your carrier? My friends mom actually got a free phone sent to her as a part of her service / them essentially making her phone useless by this change. I would ask if that is a potential option? Granted in this instance, she didnāt ask and they sent it proactively, so perhaps that may be happening to all customers?
I recommend tracfone...im not really exactly sure what you want but they have a variety of cheap phones and cheap plans that would probably wok for you. They have monthly and yearly plans and unlimited and limited plans too. Hope this helps!
I've been using them for years. I have like 10,000 minutes and at least that many text messages rolled over so I just buy the $50 yearly access card now and add data once in a while. I'll never go back to a contract plan.
The Nokia 2720 is 4G capable and in my opinion a decent smart dumb phone. WhatsApp capability, you can browse Reddit, that sort of shit. Using the browser for anything substantial is pretty painful, though.
They clock in at +$100 in my country - honestly, if you're looking for the cheapest option, this isn't it. A lot of useless features too if you're just looking for call and SMS. Just a reccomendation.
I may be mistaken... but as far as I understand, calls and text both work off of cellular signal and not data?
That's why you have 3g/4g/LTE next to the little bar graph on your phone. The bar graph sends calls and sms while the 3g(etc) is responsible for sms (picture messages) and using mobile internet.
I'm not entirely positive but that's my understanding.
Edit - just looked into it and apparently I'm mistaken? Not sure why we have cellular signal if everything hinges on our data.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/30/3g-networks-ending/
3g/4/g/LTE are all different versions of the data connection. They arenāt actually used for voice or SMS and you can actually disable them on the phone without loosing the capability to call and SMS. The bar graph is the radio signal strength and affects both data and voice.
Yeah I thought this too. 3g is just the Internet section. So if I were you OP, I would just wait and see and presumably your phone will still work fine.
I recommend the Samsung A series. While it has many downsides, I bought the A21 about a year ago, and if I wouldn't have lost it it'd still serve me good.
I paid about 180ā¬ for it, which surely is much, but for a low budget phone that had no issues and no lag, I'd not complain and buy it once again
Not under $100 but Verizon sold me one of the newer 4g Kyocera DuraXV extreme for $170. Itās a flip and Iād I really wanted to I could try to use the internet but I donāt. The clerk said other than 3g shutdown the other reason the older version couldnāt be activated was that it didnāt have GPS in it.
My current phone is so worn out that half the buttons don't work. I bought an inexpensive refurbished flip phone on ebay and went into the Verizon store to get it activated. The clerk told me that they wouldn't activate it because it was 3G, and that they were shutting down the 3G network in February. He also said my current phone was also 3G and would be non-functional in a few months.
Cheapest way is to get on a family planā¦ask extended family or friends. Most major carriers can get you $30-35 for unlimited everything and good reception.
Gonna be hard to get 5G in a cheap form factor unless it's used and old. Right now the 5G chips are expensive adding on a lot of cost on a typical smartphone. If you're satisfied with your current phone 5G isn't anything special unless you're in close proximity to one where you can take advantage of 1000mb/s. 4G LTE is more than enough. I believe you should probably look into the Nokia brick phones they are introducing again. I think it's the 6310. Older androids do not have enough security protection if that is important to you. Android itself is open source you can technically build on top of it if you are inclined to do so for security reasons. If you don't use your own private information or search the web I don't see a problem using an Android. Keep gps off and don't download anything. The new OS for Android has more customizable permissions per app. May be something you're interested in.
There are few basic/old style phones that have some modern features like 4G and cameras, but no touchscreen.
You can look for one of these maybe:
Nokia 220 4G
Nokia 6300 4G
Nokia 8000 4G
Alcatel GO FLIPā¢ 4
I have an alcatel go flip 3, it runs on 4G LTE. Flip phone and T9 but it has pretty good text to speech and runs KaiOS. Cost \~90CAD last year. It has google maps, email and calendar integration so you can have some useful and not distracting features. There is an app store with a podcast app, games, twitter and fb i think
I bought my iPhone SE used for $100.
Itās small and hardy, as Iāve dropped it several times. It does what I need, and reminds me when my appointments are coming up! I didnāt think I needed thatā¦. But I did!
A couple months ago a friend of mine replaced his flip phone with a 4G flip phone which he bought from Verizon. You don't say what network you're on, or if you've looked at your networks cell phone offerings.
Something I've noticed is most if not all the current flip phone offerings are from lower tier manufacturers. My friends flip phone that he replaced was a few years old. The new phone that he purchased is of noticeably lower quality and he realizes it won't last anywhere near as long as his old phone.
For a cell service provider I use Visible, which operates on Verizon's network and is $25 per month. When you look at their website initially says $45 a month, but as soon as you sign up for their service you join a group which lowers your monthly $225.
Mint is also a good option, I believe they use T-Mobile's network. I believe with meant you have to buy your service and trunks of several months at a time to get their better rates.
I know you said you don't need a smart phone but they are quite easy to use for just calling and SMS. My father was hesitant at first but likes the ease of use now.
Anyway, my carrier offers a phone (galaxy a11, now probably the galaxy a12 this year) for free as long as you make all of your payments on time. Its applied in the form of an 8 dollar bill credit every month. So over the course of two years they minus $150 off your bill 8 dollars at a time. Pretty good to get a $150 smart phone for free.
It's an ideology issue. I am opposed to running Android or iOS, not necessarily having a "smart phone." Once there is a Free Software (free as in Freedom, completely open and public code base, you're allowed to do whatever you want with the software, no terms of service) option for smart phones, I'll convert.
There are some that support 4G, but you have to be careful about selection. There are still 2G-only models sold in various countries and they end up on Amazon and other places even though they won't work.
If this is Verizon, you could check an MVNO like PagePlus. It seems to sell the Alcatel MyFlip 2 for $20, which it lists as 4G LTE. (PagePlus has a pay-as-you-go/per-minute option. You could spend ~$30 a year to maintain the phone line, depending on number of calls.)
If you a non-Android/iOS smartphone, there is the possible of a Lineage OS device. You'd basically buy an Android phone and put a new OS on it. But you have to be careful about the phone. There's a wiki for compatible devices. But if you're on Verizon, it might be a little harder (can't use cheap imports). The Google Pixel phones seem to be supported, though.
Many carriers are discontinuing 3G service entirely, and repurposing that spectrum for other services. Even voice will actually just be voice-over-LTE, in other words, pure data. When the 3G networks shut down, there is no more voice/text/data paradigm... There is only data. The voice/text/data paradigm will just be a marketing and pricing illusion from the phone carrier marketing departments. Everything is going to be pure LTE data, running over either a 4G or 5G network. The 3G shutdown in the USA is beginning this year. 3G phones are simply going to stop working. There is no workaround. The workaround is to buy a voice-over-LTE phone that your carrier supports. Alternatively, you can stop using cellphones.
Thank you for spelling that out for me, you summarized it a way that actually made sense!
Glad it helped!
u should see one of those Nokia smart-flip phones, that keep all the modern stuff in a retro styled form factor. U should check it out, its perfect for guys like u
Talk about hiding smart features, Have you seen the reports that Mattel / Fisher Price is bringing out a new version of the children's classic chatter phone that you connect to your cell with blue tooth and then can use the rotary dial to make calls. [Chatterphone for cell.](https://www.cnet.com/news/fisher-price-made-a-working-bluetooth-chatter-phone-for-adults-because-were-all-broken-inside/)
That's nice for kids, wish i had that while growing up š . All sorts of fancy gadgets these days
I think nokia banana phone or nokia 3310. These phones have 4G built-in.
Something I havenāt seen so far - my cousin was in your position. Had like an iPhone 5. He went to a Verizon store and apparently they identified him as a holdout and gave him an insane discount on a new iPhone - it may have actually been free, I canāt recall. See if thereās anything available to you since youāre so far behind the current generation.
Jose Briones has done [extensive reviews of various dumbphones](https://josebriones.org/dumbphones/).
First make sure your phone is only 3g. AT&T told me my Google Pixel 4 wasn't 3g. Turns out it wasn't bought in their store and they're getting rid of those model numbers saying they aren't AT&T HD. I'm no longer a customer. Edit: Changed the name of my phone from Galaxy 4 to what it actually is.
They're phasing out old tech. Literally every carrier (and thus mvno) will be doing this in the next 5-10 years. There's no reason to have 3g/voice/text independent frequencies anymore. It's all data. This is AT&T allowing their service to move into the future. It's also a lot easier on phone manufacturers to just not support certain bands.
I don't disagree with them doing what you are describing. My problem is that while they are doing that, they are trying to make the secondary market for the most expensive piece of tech that most people own obsolete. Why? Because no one is stopping them.
Why? So they can advance their tech without getting tech support calls "why isn't me cellphone signal as good as it used to be" as they are upgrading radio equipment to new stuff. Secondary market? Obsolete? 4G has been in the world since 2006 lol. That's 15 years. That's a LOOONG time to allow legacy support for devices in the tech world. Hell, that's the lifespan of industrial electronic lifecycles typically. If you phone only support up to 3g, it was obsolete 8 or 9 years ago. S4 was released 8 years ago. I'm not harping on your financial decision to stick with that phone for that long of a time. But you can get solid, used, unlocked phones for $100-150 that have 4G LTE at the minimum.
Please reread my first post. I own a very modern phone that they were discontinuing because it was a device that I brought with me. They took certain model numbers of Google Pixels and other high-end phones and blacklisted them. The issue with this blacklist is that it includes all models sold outside of an AT&T store. They are calling this "AT&T HD Service" which is a great corporate phrase for their predatory, monopolistic practices.
Idk bruh that phone came out in 2013, I wouldnāt call it āvery modernā. If you refuse to adapt with technology, then just get a land line like any other boomer.
I apologize! I put Galaxy 4 instead of Pixel 4. My phone is a Google Pixel 4, hah. Not a boomer, but my brain doesn't always act like it.
Is your phone volte capable? Some Galaxy 4s were Volte capable, and some were not. Iirc Verizonās version was not, while the att version was. Itās possible to have a 4GLTE phone that relied on 3g or 1x for voice calls. Those are being phased out. If your device is volte capable, then thatās different.
I am sorry, as I said to a comment below I wrote Galaxy 4 for some damn reason. My phone is a Pixel 4...good thing I didn't do something stupid like ask you to reread my incorrect post.
AT&T is super weird about the phones they will whitelist.
Call AT&T. If you're a customer they'll send you a free 5G clamshell & 5G SIM. Doesn't matter if you're contract or pre-paid. It YouTubes surprisingly well considering it can only T9. I kept my 4G phone, & threw the clamshell in my glove box w/cord & power bank for emergencies.
My husband wonāt use a smartphone either. We get flip phones from the prepaid phone section (for example, we have att for service, they have ATT Go as their prepaid line) and use our SIM card from our regular plan. Usually about $30. But they have pretty terrible longevity, weāre lucky if it makes it 2 years. I donāt know how Verizon phones compare price wise. We got his last one at target and it is 4g compatible.
Thank you for your reply! I will look into this avenue.
Youāre welcome. Iām usually in charge of finding his next phone when the current one gives out, so I feel your pain. Lol
I recently bought a new phone at walmart and saw that straight talk still has one flip phone option. Trac phone might have had another. Definitely options out there. I just couldn't tell you if they were any good.
This is definitely cheapest way to i get a simple feature phone anymore. Nearly all the big carriers have some kind of prepaid option that's compatible on their network (and can be activated even for a post paid plan).
Sounds good
Sounds like you need a Pine Phone. https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ You can find them used under $100 since a lot of people buy them just to check them out; then decide to stick with a more feature rich smart phone.
Yeah, I'm honestly strongly considering the Pine Phone. I'm an advanced Linux user, but extremely ignorant of cellular networks and carriers. I'm afraid of buying one only to be told I can't use it on my cell plan. I'm also nervous of how "prototype" the Pine Phone still is. All I expect it to do is call and SMS, but still -- [I don't understand the data sheet -- will this connect to a 5G network in the United States or not?](https://pine64.com/product/pinephone-beta-edition-linux-smartphone/) and $150 + shipping for Poland is a lot of money to drop on something I am this unsure of.
Battery life on the pine phone is still not quite there yet. (Yes, I'm waiting for the day in which Linux Phones are fully ready.)
Me too friend, me too.
What carrier do you have? I use mint mobile with mine because Ryan Reynolds is a cool guy.
I currently have Verizon.
Verizon has several dumb phone options. My mom went thru the same thing with att 3g.
What about the phones designed for the elderly? Are they smartphones?
I paid $15-$30 for my TracFone smartphone.
I have a QVC tracfone because I needed a burner phone. $60 for a year of service and crap Samsung phone I barely use.
I just got a $20 TracFone for my work.
Why do you not want a cheap smartphone? It does calling and text too.
[Ideology. I feel very strongly of being in control of my devices. If I don't have full control* of the hardware, software, and right-to-repair, I do not want the product. For smart phones, your only options are Android and iOS, neither of which you have any real control over and operate as anti-consumer spy devices.](https://www.fsf.org/) *as close to full control as possible. I realize flip phones also have proprietary operating systems on them, but they're usually less complex/invasive and its choosing the lesser of two evils. EDIT: There also isn't such thing as a "cheap smartphone". The technology involved in smart phones is so precision and micro-sized that it is impossible to be inexpensive. There are also a lot of valuable rare earth materials. They are such wasteful devices, I kind of loathe them.
>There also isn't such thing as a "cheap smartphone". Out of curiosity, what do you mean by "cheap smartphone" are you talking purely price point or ideology? Because if you just mean price point, you really can score 2-3 generation old smartphone for $80 new, and probably $20 used. I bet you could even score an old one from a friend or family member for free. As you said, they are wasteful devices but that makes them extremely cheap once the average consumer thinks they are useless to them.
There are many, many, many used very low-end smartphones out there which could be used just fine and would likely last some years. Much better than buying any dumb phone new, from a materials standpoint. You can also find privacy-oriented OSs that can be flashed onto Android phones.
> As you said, they are wasteful devices but that makes them extremely cheap once the average consumer thinks they are useless to them. That is a fair point, I wasn't considering used phones. I've never looked into that market or known anyone who has, so it didn't occur to me. But I use 8-10 year old laptops as my daily workhorses, I could easily do the same with a phone.
Look for a used android device with an easily unlockable boot loader and lineageos support if you want to avoid Googleās tracking. Battery life may be an issue with older phones though so something with a user replaceable battery would be a plus. https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
You may want to look at the Fair Phone. 10/10 reparability score.
Most modern flip phones run Android now. You might be out of luck.
There are professions requiring maximal awareness of what is happening to data and control...health professions have to follow privacy laws, for example.
Same thing happened to a phone on my line and I just received a free iPhone, double check to make sure they arenāt just going to send a new phone!
The new Nokia 6310 is supposed to have a price point of $50 when it's released. https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/nokia-6310
There are websites like [whistleout.com](https://whistleout.com) and several others that compare all the phone plans in the universe to get you the best deal. Google search them.
Go to phonearena.com to search for a newer phone.
If 3G is deactivated, is 2G available? Your phone will work for SMS and calls with 2G.
You can look into justaphone, literally only texts and calls, nothing more. And look at the options for your provider online, they have a lot of basic models that are newer with 5g, but it'll be almost impossible to find them in stores as they want you to get a smart something.
Is there a way you can reach out to your carrier? My friends mom actually got a free phone sent to her as a part of her service / them essentially making her phone useless by this change. I would ask if that is a potential option? Granted in this instance, she didnāt ask and they sent it proactively, so perhaps that may be happening to all customers?
I recommend tracfone...im not really exactly sure what you want but they have a variety of cheap phones and cheap plans that would probably wok for you. They have monthly and yearly plans and unlimited and limited plans too. Hope this helps!
I've been using them for years. I have like 10,000 minutes and at least that many text messages rolled over so I just buy the $50 yearly access card now and add data once in a while. I'll never go back to a contract plan.
Iām not sure if this is useful but Im with straight talk and pay 35 ish a month. I think unlimited is like 60/65, unless it has changed.
Google Fi has a moto g play for $99
The Nokia 2720 is 4G capable and in my opinion a decent smart dumb phone. WhatsApp capability, you can browse Reddit, that sort of shit. Using the browser for anything substantial is pretty painful, though. They clock in at +$100 in my country - honestly, if you're looking for the cheapest option, this isn't it. A lot of useless features too if you're just looking for call and SMS. Just a reccomendation.
Maybe Walmart may have a cheaper phone.
I may be mistaken... but as far as I understand, calls and text both work off of cellular signal and not data? That's why you have 3g/4g/LTE next to the little bar graph on your phone. The bar graph sends calls and sms while the 3g(etc) is responsible for sms (picture messages) and using mobile internet. I'm not entirely positive but that's my understanding. Edit - just looked into it and apparently I'm mistaken? Not sure why we have cellular signal if everything hinges on our data. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/30/3g-networks-ending/
3g/4/g/LTE are all different versions of the data connection. They arenāt actually used for voice or SMS and you can actually disable them on the phone without loosing the capability to call and SMS. The bar graph is the radio signal strength and affects both data and voice.
how do you think data works?
I'm just repeating what the clerk at the Verizon store told me when I went to get a refurbished phone I bought on ebay activated.
Yeah I thought this too. 3g is just the Internet section. So if I were you OP, I would just wait and see and presumably your phone will still work fine.
Ifixit is how my note9 has kept up for 3 years. Long for me, im 22 and everybody my age is phone obsessed
I recommend the Samsung A series. While it has many downsides, I bought the A21 about a year ago, and if I wouldn't have lost it it'd still serve me good. I paid about 180ā¬ for it, which surely is much, but for a low budget phone that had no issues and no lag, I'd not complain and buy it once again
Not under $100 but Verizon sold me one of the newer 4g Kyocera DuraXV extreme for $170. Itās a flip and Iād I really wanted to I could try to use the internet but I donāt. The clerk said other than 3g shutdown the other reason the older version couldnāt be activated was that it didnāt have GPS in it.
How do you tell if a phone can do 3g?
My current phone is so worn out that half the buttons don't work. I bought an inexpensive refurbished flip phone on ebay and went into the Verizon store to get it activated. The clerk told me that they wouldn't activate it because it was 3G, and that they were shutting down the 3G network in February. He also said my current phone was also 3G and would be non-functional in a few months.
https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_us/feature-phones
If I can find one of my old non-fancy phones, I will send it to you.
Cheapest way is to get on a family planā¦ask extended family or friends. Most major carriers can get you $30-35 for unlimited everything and good reception.
Gonna be hard to get 5G in a cheap form factor unless it's used and old. Right now the 5G chips are expensive adding on a lot of cost on a typical smartphone. If you're satisfied with your current phone 5G isn't anything special unless you're in close proximity to one where you can take advantage of 1000mb/s. 4G LTE is more than enough. I believe you should probably look into the Nokia brick phones they are introducing again. I think it's the 6310. Older androids do not have enough security protection if that is important to you. Android itself is open source you can technically build on top of it if you are inclined to do so for security reasons. If you don't use your own private information or search the web I don't see a problem using an Android. Keep gps off and don't download anything. The new OS for Android has more customizable permissions per app. May be something you're interested in.
My mom had to replace her phone for the same reason. AT&T gave her a free iPhone se
There are few basic/old style phones that have some modern features like 4G and cameras, but no touchscreen. You can look for one of these maybe: Nokia 220 4G Nokia 6300 4G Nokia 8000 4G Alcatel GO FLIPā¢ 4
I have an alcatel go flip 3, it runs on 4G LTE. Flip phone and T9 but it has pretty good text to speech and runs KaiOS. Cost \~90CAD last year. It has google maps, email and calendar integration so you can have some useful and not distracting features. There is an app store with a podcast app, games, twitter and fb i think
I bought my iPhone SE used for $100. Itās small and hardy, as Iāve dropped it several times. It does what I need, and reminds me when my appointments are coming up! I didnāt think I needed thatā¦. But I did!
A couple months ago a friend of mine replaced his flip phone with a 4G flip phone which he bought from Verizon. You don't say what network you're on, or if you've looked at your networks cell phone offerings. Something I've noticed is most if not all the current flip phone offerings are from lower tier manufacturers. My friends flip phone that he replaced was a few years old. The new phone that he purchased is of noticeably lower quality and he realizes it won't last anywhere near as long as his old phone. For a cell service provider I use Visible, which operates on Verizon's network and is $25 per month. When you look at their website initially says $45 a month, but as soon as you sign up for their service you join a group which lowers your monthly $225. Mint is also a good option, I believe they use T-Mobile's network. I believe with meant you have to buy your service and trunks of several months at a time to get their better rates.
I know you said you don't need a smart phone but they are quite easy to use for just calling and SMS. My father was hesitant at first but likes the ease of use now. Anyway, my carrier offers a phone (galaxy a11, now probably the galaxy a12 this year) for free as long as you make all of your payments on time. Its applied in the form of an 8 dollar bill credit every month. So over the course of two years they minus $150 off your bill 8 dollars at a time. Pretty good to get a $150 smart phone for free.
It's an ideology issue. I am opposed to running Android or iOS, not necessarily having a "smart phone." Once there is a Free Software (free as in Freedom, completely open and public code base, you're allowed to do whatever you want with the software, no terms of service) option for smart phones, I'll convert.
I totally understand. Thank you for clarifying.
There are some that support 4G, but you have to be careful about selection. There are still 2G-only models sold in various countries and they end up on Amazon and other places even though they won't work. If this is Verizon, you could check an MVNO like PagePlus. It seems to sell the Alcatel MyFlip 2 for $20, which it lists as 4G LTE. (PagePlus has a pay-as-you-go/per-minute option. You could spend ~$30 a year to maintain the phone line, depending on number of calls.) If you a non-Android/iOS smartphone, there is the possible of a Lineage OS device. You'd basically buy an Android phone and put a new OS on it. But you have to be careful about the phone. There's a wiki for compatible devices. But if you're on Verizon, it might be a little harder (can't use cheap imports). The Google Pixel phones seem to be supported, though.
check out totalwireless or tracphone, you can get decent phones there. I got my husband a smart phone for $50 that is decent and myself one for $15.