The best phone is the one you never use
I've been on a Nokia 3210 since September thanks to Ava's post about her wife who doesn't own a smartphone. That story became the last straw in my phone addiction after considering the switch for two years. So I went to a local electronics store in Da Nang and bought the Nokia for what now seems like a ridiculous price: $56 USD. It had a scratch in the middle of the display, and I couldn't care less—this was the least money I spent on a phone since 2005.
Four months later, this was the best decision I made last year, second only to my move to Asia. The Nokia traveled with me across Vietnam, India, Nepal, and Thailand, and it's truly the best phone you will ever have for one reason and one reason only: you won't ever use it.
I could count on the fingers of both hands how many of times I had to pull it out. Usually to:
- set a timer (cooking, meditation, laundry)
- set an alarm (I rarely use those)
- receive OTPs (deep sigh)
- check a 2-megapixel picture of Google Maps so I don't get lost
The modern Nokia has two slots for a SIM card, so you can keep your main one and use another one for a regional phone number. It has 4G and LTE, but I disabled those to save battery, and now it can hold about a week on a single charge. The camera is just enough for basic utility. Everything else… you won't need, as it turned out.
As for the downsides, the build quality is crap. Unlike the old and famous brick-like Nokia, it will likely fall apart if you smash it on the floor. Also the keypad is too small for my fat climber's hands and I feel like a grandpa typing with the index finger on one hand because my two thumbs together are wider than the phone itself. But then again, you'll never have to do it, so who cares.
I still kept my iPhone. It’s turned off and stays at home almost all the time. I use it for banking—because everything these days needs a fucking mobile app—and maybe for navigation in the first three days in a new city.
If you really want, you can have music on your 3210. And internet. But I am glad I resisted the urge to do anything with it other than making phone calls, of which I still made very few. We’ve gotten to the point where phone addiction has gone too far. Our devices are with us during dinner. They are on our beds when we have sex. We look at their screens while on the toilet. Phones were meant to be useful—not omnipotent. What happened next spiraled beyond our control. It’s not our fault. But it’s not too late to take things back into our hands.
And hey, the Nokia still has Snake on it!
