Dumb Phone

FIG phone…..look it up. Its a great choice

Tag has a full list of 4g flip phones that they kasher, many of which can be found used on eBay for 25

Look into the BlackBerry Q5, Q10, or Q20 (Blackberry Classic).

Technically speaking not a dumbphone but it has a very strong inbuilt parental control feature to block internet, whatsapp is not available anymore, could be email still works but can be blocked. Most apps don’t work anymore.

BlackBerry has ended support for these phones so do some research before buying that the phone will still work with your carrier etc. Best resource for all blackberry advice is crackberry.com

Be aware they are hard to find, but try eBay.

I strongly believe there is no better dumbphone on the market then (the pre-android) BlackBerry’s.

the advantage of the phone not being a smartphone is that it makes a statement to others and the community, espeically children and teens, that we are keeping the torahs standards…even if a smartphone can in practice be just as practically kosher

Oilam u must get nokias!!!!!
simple, quick, geshmak and most importantly KOSHER!!!!!

I like the fact that you can remove the battery from the fig phone!

MikolMelamdai,

“I need one that supports 4G (because 2g and 3g are not supported at least by some of the carriers), preferably with a qwerty keyboard (though I know that’s hard to find), with hotspot capabilities but with a way to block internet on the actual device.”

It might be worth taking a look at the Light Phone II. It is a niche style tiny E–Ink device with a touchscreen (QWERTY keyboard). It is 4G, can make a hotspot, and has no browser at all. It can call, SMS/MMS (images don‘t show up on the phone but can be forwarded to email), play music and podcasts, clock alarm, calculator, a directions tool, and recently a calendar. To my mind that‘s almost the perfect set of tools I want in a phone (if only it had a camera and flashlight I‘d shout its praise from the rooftops).

The downsides of the device are the the janky refreshing screen that all E–Ink devices share by necessity, a bit slower touch responsiveness than people are used to with a smartphone, a small battery that drains quickly when reception is poor or using directions, and a rather high price compared to other dumbphones (it‘s a small company and the target customer seems to be the Yuppy millennial who realizes how harmful smartphone addiction can be but still likes tech). Still much cheaper than a new IPhone or high end Android smartphone. The software is LightOS, which is a fork of Android.

MikolMelamdai,

“there are a few companies that are trying to create a dumb phone that has the necessary capabilities, there is light phone, punkt and maybe another one.”

The Mudita Pure, though both the Punkt and Mudita phones lack QWERTY keyboards and are even more expensive than the Light Phone II. The creator of the Punkt phone says, “if anyone wants to talk to me, they can give me a call”. I personally text way more than call, so I prefer having a touchscreen/QWERTY keyboard. The other challenge with these dumbphones is needing multiple devices to maintain the functionality a smartphone provides notably a GPS in the car, a flashlight, and a camera.

“By the way I’ve read online about apps that will make your iphone look like a dumb phone without icons, black and white etc.”

I run Android, which is more customizable than iOS. The primary interface you have with an Android device is the “launcher” (now called the Home app), which can be changed out. I currently use Olauncher, an open source launcher that has no icons. My “home” screen has the time and date, followed by my 8 most used apps (list of editable names, no icons). Swiping up shows a word list of all installed apps, with the ability to type text that matches an app’s name to launch it automatically. So, for example, I can swipe up and type “po”, and my podcast app launches immediately.