I’ve been steeping myself in simple voice phones for the past week, which feels like getting back to my roots. Back when I first joined PCMag in 2004, reviewing bar phones and flip phones was a big part of my job. Now they’re just a sideshow in a smartphone-dominated market.
These streamlined handsets are predominantly owned by people 65 and over, and people who make less than $30,000. According to Pew, 85% of Americans own smartphones, and only 12% own voice phones. But 12% of the population is still millions of people, and pretty soon they’ll all be shopping for new phones. Carriers are ditching old 2G and 3G networks because they use airwaves less efficiently than 4G, and that’s going to turn a lot of older voice phones into doorstops. So I decided to go all in with testing the latest and, in some cases, greatest voice phones.
This week I took a look at the inexpensive Nokia 225 4G ($49.99), Nokia 6300 4G ($69.99), and Nuu F4L ($79.99), and the costlier Sunbeam F1 ($195) and Punkt MP02 ($349). Waiting on my desk for next week is the Kyocera DuraXE Epic ($269.99). I’ve also, in the past, liked the Sonim XP3 ($240) and the Kyocera DuraXV Extreme ($240).
These phones generally fit into three categories: low-end basic phones, such as the Nokias and the Nuu F4L; classy “digital disconnector” models, such as the Light Phone II ($350), the Punkt, and the Sunbeam; and beefy ruggedized phones from Kyocera and Sonim.
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Unfortunately, many inexpensive 4G voice phones tend to be sluggish, sloppy, and buggy. One of the phones I tested, the Jethro SC490, wanted to send my location data to China. If you want quality, you’ll have to pay for it: My favorite voice phone so far, the Sunbeam F1, runs on hand-crafted American software, but it costs $195. If you really have a tight budget, the Nokia 225 4G isn’t bad, and the Nokia 6300 4G is pretty good.
So what’s stopping phone manufacturers from putting out inexpensive, functional voice phones for the low-income people who want them? Right now, it’s the software, which is both too modern and not modern enough.
Low-power older OSes designed for voice phones can’t handle high-quality synchronous voice calling over packet-based 4G networks. Most voice phones run variants of Android and other smartphone operating systems that demand a huge amount of power for the seemingly simple task of making a call. They can usually only manage about 6 hours of talk time before running out of juice.
For some reason, all the Android-based voice phones I tested this week use Android 8.1. (I asked Google why this might be the version of choice for voice phones; the company didn’t have a response.) And the texting app built into Android 8.1 has no idea what group texts are: It can read them, but it will only reply directly to a message’s sender. Since most people use group texts at least occasionally, that’s a big problem.
A company can invest in its own operating system (like Sunbeam’s BasicOS or Nokia’s Series 30+) or custom apps (like Punkt’s Pigeon implementation of Signal), but that costs money. So at the discount end of the market, you get Android 8.1 phones that struggle with calling and texting. And since the whole point of voice phones is that they mostly can’t run apps or get onto the internet, there’s not much left to justify owning one. That’s going to remain the case until someone figures out an inexpensive way to bring voice phone software into the era of 4G and 5G.
Would you ever consider a voice phone? Let’s talk about it in the comments.
What Else Happened This Week?
- Verizon proved it can merge C-Band and millimeter-wave. This is important because it plans to market both technologies as “ultra wideband.” Now there won’t be a big consumer experience break between them.
- More than 500,000 people have signed up for Starlink. Elon Musk says they can serve a half-million users, but millions might be “a challenge.” This syncs with what I’ve learned about Starlink satellite capacity. I’m still testing T-Mobile’s home internet, by the way. Speeds are good, but latency is all over the place, from “great” to “can’t make a Zoom call.”
- There’s a viral story going around about foldable iPhones that may not be true. It’s just based on one analyst’s speculation. Is Apple working on a foldable iPhone? Of course. Will they ship 15 million of them in 2023? Remember, a thousand no’s for every yes.
- Asus is launching a new line of ZenFones next week. Apparently they’re going to have flip-up cameras. Asus’ approach to the US market is perpetually perplexing; it’s like that kid who keeps dipping one foot in the pool and running away.
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