We Switched to Dumb(ish)phones So You Won't Have To
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- čas přidán 30. 05. 2024
- The MKBHD Team loves the idea of dumbphones, so we split up to test a few different minimalist devices! Spoilers: there isn't a perfect 'dumb device'... yet.
We Mention These!
3D Print a Z Flip 5 Dumbphone - www.thingiverse.com/thing:661...
Using The Z Flip 5 As a Minimalist Phone - • Using a Z Flip 5 as a ...
Using The Light Phone II For a Year - www.theverge.com/24140675/lig...
Light Phone II: geni.us/F1T4CU
BOOX Palma: geni.us/6h8yKr
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5: geni.us/2hUiq
~
Chapters:
00:00 MKBHD Team's Daily Screentime
00:47 This Phone is Tiny
02:33 Z Flip 5... but weird
03:33 We Made an iPhone Dumber
04:57 The Defacto Dumbphone
07:54 Full Android on E-Ink??
09:24 Would This Stop You From Using Your Phone?
11:17 Creating The Perfect Dumbphone
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Music licensed from Epidemic Sound:
www.epidemicsound.com/referra...
Follow The Studio:
/ thestudio
/ thestudio
Follow the staff:
Marques Brownlee / mkbhd
Adam Molina / adamlukas17
Alex Wolfe / thealexwolfe
Andrew Manganelli / andymanganelli
Brandon Havard / b_hvrd
David Imel / durvidimel
Ellis Rovin / ellisrovin
Jono Tan / jonotan86
Mariah Zenk / totallynotabusinessacc
Michael Emerick / mikey_emerick
Miles Somerville / someofmiles
Tim McMahon / timmcmahonn
Vinh Dang / danggvinh
Equipment used in this video and others:
Canon EOS C70: geni.us/AtpxW
Canon RF 15-35mm f/2.8L: howl.me/chHqd63eV8A
Canon RF 28-70mm f/2.8L: geni.us/Tbimi
Sennheiser MKH-416: geni.us/jYxRVj
Sennheiser ME 2 lav: geni.us/0bpKiZX
PowerDeWise lav: geni.us/SRX1Th
Zoom F8n Pro: geni.us/tuv7o8
Hollyland Lark Max: geni.us/mkJRt7
Shot and produced by Miles Somerville
Audio by Ellis Rovin
Graphics by Tim McMahon and Michael Emerick - Věda a technologie
screen time of 26 minute average per day I'm not even joking 🫡
What do you do all day
Get a life
@@Trainwreckstv3tv *a digital life 💀
Same here lol. I lost the damn power button of my phone, accidentally cut off the fingerprint reader while trying to fix something else, i have a broken screen that causes ghost touches and dead areas and I still don't plan on changing or fixing. Even trying to open the damn phone is a burden now and I absolutely LOVE it lol. I'm feeling better than ever. There are even some days i never use my phone at all.
@@Trainwreckstv3tv This is a plot twist I didn't see coming.
“I wouldn’t watch tiktok on this” yes david that’s the whole idea, you’re getting it now
"we use them to much because they put worms in our brains"
honestly spot on
RFK Jr Reference
"words* in our brain"
21 minutes on my phone. We don't talk about my computer screentime.
Same lol. Just don’t look at my GTA hours
Screen time of 9 and a half hours… oops
Do you like not have a job or something, how do you get 9h screen time
Screentime of over 11 hours. (Not trying to flex but...)
If you don’t have a computer or tablet, this would make sense. My laptop hours is pretty much my entire awake day
13+ hours for me
4 1/2 hours for me
Ellis' "What?!" to Maria not using a Calendar needs to be a waveform soundbite. Hilarious.
yes hahaha
and to be fair, I don't use a calender app
either.
@@ggproductions7078 whaaat?! I won't survive a week without one
I don’t use it either. Most people I know don’t.
This video underscores why this is not a device problem, but a lifestyle one.
If you change your lifestyle, any of the devices shown can be integrated seamlessly into a digital minimalism journey.
They live and enjoy their tech driven lifestyle so that's why it's hard to see the benefits of less tech in their lives. Cool video though!
Totally agree, if you are bothered by using an app too much. Why not just uninstall it? About two years ago I uninstalled Instagram because I noticed it became an habit and I was using it way too much. I missed it for about a month, maybe two, but now I can go easily without it.
Right? One of them said 'I wouldn't watch tiktok on this thing' as if that wasn't the whole point lol!
I really dig the MKBHD family.
Me too. This video was somehow adorable, great vibes from the team.
GREAT producing and editing and the reviewers are all quite funny
Me too!
I really dislike calling company staff "family".
Pinning the lowest average screentime.... or the highest... surprise us.
12h 53m
8h42 on Saturday. Typically 4-5 a weekday
14h 47m as a 22 Year Old;
8 hours on messaging apps.
2 on YT
The 4 on various co-op games
long distance relationships be hitting
23 hours?
5
Mariah's 7 hours is so real
She had 3 hours on google maps lol
@@Tomato700does driving with Google Maps open count?
I think Maria was onto something with the perfect dumb phone idea. This would be mine:
-Flip phone with physical buttons (maybe the option of full qwerty for most productivity or just num pad so I can go back to T9 texting)
-Z-flip front display size but really good e-ink like the Boox, touchscreen for app compatibility
-Cellular and GPS
-Full android app support so I can use Google Maps, Spotify, Strava, and occasionally a web browser (QR menu is a good reason why)
-Decent-ish camera
-Crappy enough internals so playing games or social media is bad but not too crappy so texting and calling works good and the phone is overall responsive
You should look into the CAT S22 FLIP. It has a T9 Keyboard, but there's an App thats called "Traditional T9". With that you have to only press buttons once per letter.
Screen time average 14 hours 33 minutes. Dear God I need help.
Yeah you definitely do
You do. But so do I, and lots of people. You're not alone in that - in fact that's why most people are looking at a video like this: because we feel you on that. Welcome to the club - you've just made a good first step.
You need to read COMPOUND EFFECT BY DARREN HARDY.... hope this helps
Mine is 13+ hrs. Let's start lowering it today
4:08 I think you underestimate the monkey part of your brain. There absolutely is a "oo shiney" part of your brain that is attracted to all the bright pretty colors.
That's the worm though, the low level, basic instant reward hotwiring your motivation to feed an addiction to ad supported services. Phones aren't "too fun" because, for the most part, they aren't particularly fun, at least not compared to other things pretty much everyone could be doing instead, but we still wind up using our phones more than anything else anyway.
I think addicting would be more accurate. They aren’t necessarily fun, but they feed the little gremlin in our brain so we keep using them. People have dealt with the addictive side of computers and tech for decades at this point, with vastly different technology between them. While the shiny phone might be a small part of it, I think most of it has to do algorithms optimizing engagement. It’s what eats up most of my free time, and I hate it, but I have an addictive personality so it’s quite a bit tougher to kick
Ellis the typa dude to use a Boox Palma just so he can say "*_Booox Pallmaaa_*"
Ok seriously, this is a great video. Most of us want to limit our screen time but you have shown a really easy way: just set your screen to greyscale (forget the silly subscription widget) - it’s like a permanent visual reminder to get off your phone, and makes your phone less satisfying to use. I’ve just set up shortcuts to automatically enable this during my working day. Thank you Studio crew!
its even easier on iphone, you can activate it via backtap for instance
@@HaswellCore Great suggestion, didn’t think of triggering it with the back tap - thanks!
The only thing that stopped me from doing this is that I like using the night mode that shifts everything to a warmer color, especially in the late evening. On my eink tablet, I only use the warm light when a front light is required.
When I switch back to full colour my phone seems really bright and overloading
None of these are what I think of when I hear “dumbphone”. A dumbphone is an old school flip phone that only calls and texts with the numpad.
I know right? like.... where are those updated flip phones that is running KaiOS
Exactly, Nokia 3310 is a dumb phone
I believe thats a feature phone, atleast here in India
Maria NOT using a calendar is wild.
I don’t use it either, I use reminders some times to not forget something but otherwise I have no need for it. Everything is already in different places
I would use a calendar if I could auto-import my work schedule. But I can't, and that's about the only thing it would be useful for. (The web portal is so bad I resort to taking a photo of the posted paper schedule.)
I do have a recurring reminder to pay my rent, and I'll put in the very rare doctor's appointment, but nothing else in my life is scheduled that precisely. If something needs to be done I'll jot it down on the whiteboard by my front door and get to it when I feel like it.
@@cmmartti interesting. I use my calendar for appointments, booked holidays, ex div dates for stocks etc. Reminders are for daily tasks. Nice to learn from others. Thanks for sharing.
Not really.
@@mxmus08Another data point - I'm too disorganised to consistently pay attention to a calendar and track appointments on it, but I don't have many obligations so most of the time between reminders from services and overthinking/rumination keeping most important stuff at the front of my mind I seem to keep up. That and putting bills in obvious places. Not the best or healthiest way but I suspect that might be similar to Maria's situation (I can also relate to the background CZcams addiction leading to large screen times lol)
NICE FEED MARIAH
What is this, a cross over episode?
I swear I was about to see how I could get you to see this, turns out I'm 5 days late!
My Hisense A5Pro eink phone was my favourite phone of all time. Standing in the Aussie outback under the blazing sun the A5 looked just gorgeous where most phones were barely readable. When getting messages one heads to bright outdoors instead of normal screens where one heads to the darker areas. I've never had a phone that had so many comments on how beautiful the screen was and it's mat coating.
Why “was”? Pity this isn’t more widely available.
@@Returntotheworld I dropped a log on it while preparing firewood. :-/ I'll look at a eInk phone again next time I upgrade for sure.
"I felt like Michael Fisher all weekend" lmao
"were they right?.... no🤣" is hilarious 🤣🤣🤣
1:43 Internet Shaquille shout-out -- the GOAT!
I guess the cellular version Palma is in the making. Meanwhile, Bigme just released two cellular eink phones (one monochromatic, one color eink). Also, Hisense has been making cellular eink phone for years, although mostly sold in China.
“Daily Average 10h 48m • 21% from last week “ wtf i don’t think im on my phone that much tho😭
Ohh they counted me listening to youtube music wc is a lot of listening lol
Screen time of 7 minutes per day for the past week. It's CWL; gotta get those wins.
I can understand.
Catholic women's League?
Nah, it’s clan war league (Clash of clan)
@@dhavalpatel4740bruh I used phone to play clash and on average I used 1hr screentime alone. 5hrs on the of date lol
8 MICE BLENDER, ONE SLICE CHEESE! ✊🏻✊🏻@@dhavalpatel4740
Also, fire job on the e-ink style studio intro.
We actually filmed The Studio intro with inverted colors on a Boox Palma for that intro. Real e-ink!
@@TheStudio genius, love it!
I use, for over 6 months now, my Light phone 2 for calling and as a hotspot for my Boox Palma. I love the minimalistic way I live my life now. For writing, reading and planning I use my Remarkable 2. The combination of these three devices is perfect for me as my daily drivers.
06:15 - I see whatchu did there with that J-cut, lmao!
today I learned what a J-cut is
@@skyblockreborn1379jump cut right?
@@AlfaOxTrot. nope, a J-cut is when audio from the next clip starts playing before the video switches. It's called a J-cut because on the timeline, the clips look vaguely like a J, as opposed to an L-cut, which is the opposite.
but why? I thought it was an error or mistake...
been daily driving the hisense A9 for about a year now (swapped for a bit between other dumb phones) and i really love the long battery life!! i initially thought yall tried it out looking at the thumbnail but i can say it's definitely the cellular version of the boox palma
The Minimal phone with it's eInk display & hardware keyboard is interesting & worth checking out.
Found out about that through this comment! I hope they make it to production, because that design is perfect.
this is the phone i want if i do the jump
Please do a part 2 of this! So many dumbphones out there its crazy! Ive been using the sunbeam f1 pro (flip phone dumb phone) for almost a year now and it has been amazing to use - has full touchscreen, phenomenal talk to text, weather, navigation (both native and waze), and a hotspot as well so i can connect my laptop which i usually have with me. Lots of great options out there these days.
I respect Mariah's raw honesty about being a phone FIEND that will not cooperate with ANY limitation that isn't IRONCLAD.
You just have to love these Studio Guys. Always nice to have Mariah on the studio channel! Go girl. Best Studio crew on CZcams
Lol, surprisingly, I've found that when my S24 switches to sleep mode and my screen turns black and white, I have very little incentive to use apps on my phone. Scrolling for recipes, Instgram, CZcams, etc. becomes extremely boring when not in color.
Probably has an option to make it black and white in settings. iPhone does. I’ve a quick toggle set so it can be changed back to color as needed
Best studio crew in the biz, always appreciate the content. Also, glad to hear Air Message still kicking it amidst all the recent Beeper & Sunbird fiascos.
So this is why you guys were talking about dumbphones on the pod 😂
Where is Punkt phone?
The underrated “dumb phone” is an Apple Watch with cellular. It still does everything I need it to, but none of the wasted time scrolling.
Id rather Check my screen time... I have 7 hours just for my learning and extra for my free time 💀
the z flip is simply a better r1 rabbit
Been on a dumb phone and iPod combo for over 2 years now, I can't imagine ever going back now.
Is it worth it?
@@danielvidalesyt 100%, I made a video about my thought process. My battery lasts 15-20 days on a single charge, I'm happier, and by paying for music directly from the artists, I am paying them better than Spotify ever would :)
@rejectconvenience which dumb phone?
@@AlexCuevas91 The TCL Classic, I paid about $40 for the phone on sale, I think it's normally $70. The plan costs $6/month on Tello (no data required!)
@@AlexCuevas91 TCL Classic
Thank you for finally naming the device Elis was using. I tried searching but couldn't find it. Looks super cool!
All of Mariah's takeaways are hilarious! She's not wrong, if you CAN install smartphone apps, you will at somepoint.
16h 55minutes 😮. I’m crazy 😂
Mine is 15h 50mjn. But I sleep with my screen on.
What is wrong with both of you? How is that even possible? Do you not work? Or even sleep? Or eat? Or what?
How does your phone last that long? Are you using it as a billboard or what?
@@Leanzazzy so many questions. We need answerz!
@@Leanzazzy it may be because i left the always on display on my iPhone 14 pro! I love my wallpaper lol
@@Gregory70617 The always on display does not get counted
The main issue with e-ink displays is they're extremely susceptible to burn in, but not in the way you expect. Some of the particles from the color can become permanently charged and never leave the screen.
Really? I've probably used my PocketBook e-reader for 4 years at least 20 minutes a day, sometimes 5 hours, and not a single pixel is burned in. When have you experienced this?
@@CouldBeMathijs There's no such thing as "pixel burn in" in e-ink displays because they don't have pixels. The way images are generated on those is small black pellets get electrically charged and that causes them to rise and stick to the top layer of the panel. Then you have additional trickery with changing particle sizes and how they're charged in order to have one color but not the other. This is the reason why you don't have full color e-ink displays. At most you'll have 3 color ones.
@@BrunodeSouzaLino Sure, but still, not one of the ink-cells is stuck in any position after multiple years of use, nor is any part of the screen discoloured.
*The best* dumbphone Is actually a smartwatch with LTE (I use a galaxy watch 6)
You can do everything you need (calls, WhatsApp, messages, payments, music, podcasts, get directions etc) and nothing you don't (yt, IG, tik tok etc) but doing everything takes a bit more time, so you really filter what you actually want to do.
Only real downside si battery life and lack of camera.
The first is easily overcome by having the charging puck in a bag with you. Since the battery is small, it'll charge fast on any random usb port from any pc
Othe Plusses are: you probably already have one and you carry it around. It on your wrists. Not having a phone in a pocket feel amazing
Put the 2016 iPhone SE on that table and watch everyone glow with joy as they put it in their hands.
First world problems.
If you want to restrict yourself, just delete all the social media apps, it’s kinda stupid to buy an objectively worse device instead
Good idea in theory, but I've had several devices that came with social media installed out of the box that couldn't be removed.
7:35 You can't higher the refresh rate of e-ink. If you want a high refresh rate, the closest you might get is a matte, monochrome OLED panel.
"What do i need a calendar for?"
"Everything!"
There are two kinds of people I guess lol, my life would fall apart without a calendar 😅
The blank “iPhone dumber” actually worked amazing for me. The first day was just pickup after pickup after pickup of just being like “ohh no I don’t need to do anything important I just want to doom scroll” and then I’d put it down
Wow awesome!!! Thanks for this video! Ellis I will buy five Boox Palma’s now, I am amped about this setup.
I got the Boox Palma in part to help with my scrolling problem, and to be more focused on reading and language learning when I'm on a device, and so far it's been great.
1GB for music is just fine,I just looked it up and 1GB of music is 18 hours !!!
you don't need that much bit-rate for music files if you're just using simple microphones.
YESSS! Been wanting to see a review of the Boox Palma!
I switched from Android to iPhone SE to control my screen time. I turned on screentime in settings, created a screentime passcode I could not remember and put it in my password manager, then disabled the web browser and youtube. It's effective, and I still have all the useful things like hotspot, camera, maps, payments, MFA etc. And because my screentime is low, I frequently go 3-4 days without recharging.
Boox Palma with sim card is something i never knew i wanted, let alone existed until this video
I found that leaving my phone in grey scale helped me to use it much less, and to avoid it being annoying I created some routines (samsung, but I think other brands have it too) that turned the color back once I opened my gallery, maps and camera.
but did Ellis get the palma primarily as a kindle-like device or what was it?
"we looked at a few dumbphones for a couple minutes so you wont have to"
There is a thing called "focused mode". With which you can limit which apps you can use at what time. Also in parental controls you can set screen time limits for each specific app.
I love Mariah's whole "It's amazing what you can get away with if you don't give a damn" approach to things :D.
Virtually none of these are actually dumbphones, but that was an interesting video!
I love studio uploads, keep going!!!!!
This is so something I've been thinking about. Love my hybrid smart watch with e-ink.
What do you do all day and have a screen time as low as that?
11:10 had two phones at all times "I felt like Michael Fisher all weekend." LOL
I daily-drove the hisense A9 for about a year and loved virtually every feature about it. E-ink, decent camera, access to my email and calendar, an actual 3.5mm jack. I ended up switching to the Samsung Z5 for one big reason though. Hisense never released the A9 for the global market, meaning no Google support. No maps, gmail, play store, or even google powered apps. I strongly think that if they released the same thing with a slightly faster processor and access to Google, I would use that phone for 5+ years.
I did really enjoy having a wifi only smart phone to use for social media and such at home and a simple e-ink device to do everything else.
this video really showed how important it is to do competitor analysis on ur concept / product
I tried Blank, but the problem is, you still have the App Library when you swipe right, so I literally just don’t even use the widgets any more.
Yessss!! Been waiting for y’all to talk about these! I used The Light Phone successfully for about a month before I decided to switch back. I enjoyed it & still wanna use it sometimes but I was invited to a party where the address wouldn’t appear even in Apple or Google Maps so my friends not being able to just send their location was not only slightly embarrassing but could pose a safety risk if you were really lost & didn’t have your main phone. The directions tool worked great in every other scenario tho. The Light Phone team & community had also been very helpful & responsive with any questions as a newcomer, set up, or really any question in general, but as soon as I mentioned this issue & just offered a suggestion or request to allow location sharing, it’s been radio silence ever since…I was looking into Boox Palma once I was situated with Light but maybe I’ll still give it a shot. Great vid! ❤
So you are telling me that David and Ellis are actually two different person?
I am so glad that Ellis and Mariah are together again! They truly are the best comedy duo!
Maria and Ellis are the best duo, I just enjoy their content
Brilliant video! Love this idea
Boox is crazy! they have a tablet range that I'm super interested in. the notes feature specifically (and how notes interacts with the calendar) is really awesome. I'd love to see a review on this!
I've wanted to live a day on just the cover display of my Z Flip ... since the Z Flip 3. Now I have the 5 and still haven't gotten to it yet.
"You dont use a calendar?? WHAT!?!?!" 🤣🤣🤣
You can turn your iPhone into a Dumbphone using the integrated Assistive access feature. Gives you mega battery life too
☝It does give a huge battery savings.
I'm honestly really into the e-ink camera lol, I'd wanna take videos and photos on it, would be great if you could get output that looks the same as it does on the screen but I guess it's processing might not be that good.
For regular Android users, I think a minimalist launcher to replace your home screen goes a long way and does most of what these devices are trying to do. Also they're not dumb phones if they rely on wifi/internet.
The music on this channel is always a delight ❤
The Boox Palma not being a phone is actually so frustrating. It's exactly the kind of device I want to replace my current smartphone, but if I can't put my sim card in it then it's basically useless.
Someone please just make a phone like this already, it's insane to me that such a device still doesn't exist.
i would buy the boox palma tomorrow if it was a stand alone phone.
Man, it was pretty weird to watch a video made by iPhone/Mac users on what their idea of what a "dumbphone" was and how to "lessen your screen time" on all of these smartphones that let you do everything that normal smartphones do.
Mariah no worries some of us can do many different things at once so i get the hours . Enjoyed the Video and love when you guy's use many different devices. Especially when some of us are Tech Nerds.Thanks for sharing Enjoyed. ✌️
How is an e-reader a phone if it doesn't have a microphone and speaker and SIM? (even if it does have microphone and speaker, which I don't know if it does, I saw it doesn't have a SIM slot)
Aight so I used a Lightphone for a full two years and now I'm back to using a smartphone - a Asus ROG Phone 8 as a a maximal phone actualy haha. What I noticed was when using a dumbphone you then need to carry around a 1) digtial audio players 2) note book 3) pen 4) gaming handheld 5) camera. It's actually pretty crazy how much you need to get when you go with a dumbphone
What I want most out of dumb phone is an S24 quality camera. Everything else can be greyscale and whatever else but the camera mode can have colour screen that captures great shots.
A kitchen safe is my go-to. Literally lock my phone away. Works like a charm
I think my screen time is over 12 hours in average.. idk how to check average but they are always so high... i would definitely use the last device though. I have been wanting a device to read from and it seems perfect to also not have many distractions while i do the things i want to do, or get me off certain apps more
Just saw something about The Minimalist Phone. They're crowdfunding at the moment, and I really hope that phone comes to life. An e-ink display with cellular Android, so I can have the necessary apps and none of the social media. Please!!
For android users, best way to dumb down your phone is the lock me out app.
you can straight up lock all the distracting apps with a password only your loved one knows and viola, the phone is dumb except for the apps you really want like 2FA, maps etc.
Or theres an option where it allows you to use it a limited time & it locks up for a set amount of time. Like, use locked apps for 15 mins & it locks up once time is up to say 2 hours. You cant uninstall or force stop the app without a password either. The trick is not knowing the password, ask your family member to do it for you.
Have you guys ever tried phone lenses? Like moment or beastgrip? Can you give your thoughts on them?
I own a Boox Palma. Absolutely love it. If I leave the house... Well, my phone comes with me. Although so does my Palma. But at home, it's more than good enough. It's my websurfing book that doesn't hurt my eyes at all.
What about the Hisense A9? Seems like a perfect candidate for this, being an Android phone with an eink display. Pair that with a text based launcher and you’re golden.
Ellis made an EXCELLENT case for the Boox and-as a fellow iPhone user-now I’m considering buying one
That's maybe the future. Size of the rabbit r1, functions of a regular phone, camera that at least read QR code or take small square shots with specific filter/quality, make a phone call, connect headphones via bluetooth. I can imagine having something square in my pocket or have it on a string like a necklace. thanks for reviewing those things.
Sick animation at the end of the “perfect” device!
I miss my Palm Pilot use to spend hours on it in H.S. and hours long medical appointments note taking, creative writing. Had a dictionary, thethoris, eciclapidia & ext... Less destractions. This is my first hearing about this and I would be one of those old fans.
I drop my phone a while ago and the screen is now flickering after couple minutes of uses, I dont intent to fix it because its actually helping me not to doom scroll too much anymore but still usable for texting and making phone calls lmao