We Switched to Dumbphones So You Won't Have To
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 พ.ค. 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 - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
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.
"we use them to much because they put worms in our brains"
honestly spot on
RFK Jr Reference
"words* in our brain"
“I wouldn’t watch tiktok on this” yes david that’s the whole idea, you’re getting it now
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.
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
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".
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!
Pinning the lowest average screentime.... or the highest... surprise us.
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
5h on average
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!
Mariah's 7 hours is so real
She had 3 hours on google maps lol
Ellis the typa dude to use a Boox Palma just so he can say "*_Booox Pallmaaa_*"
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!
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 TH-cam addiction leading to large screen times lol)
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.
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.
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
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
1:43 Internet Shaquille shout-out -- the GOAT!
"I felt like Michael Fisher all weekend" lmao
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
"were they right?.... no🤣" is hilarious 🤣🤣🤣
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!
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
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.
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.
I respect Mariah's raw honesty about being a phone FIEND that will not cooperate with ANY limitation that isn't IRONCLAD.
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.
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...
You just have to love these Studio Guys. Always nice to have Mariah on the studio channel! Go girl. Best Studio crew on TH-cam
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.
“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
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
Wow awesome!!! Thanks for this video! Ellis I will buy five Boox Palma’s now, I am amped about this setup.
So this is why you guys were talking about dumbphones on the pod 😂
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
11:10 had two phones at all times "I felt like Michael Fisher all weekend." LOL
Thank you for finally naming the device Elis was using. I tried searching but couldn't find it. Looks super cool!
Where is Punkt phone?
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
All of Mariah's takeaways are hilarious! She's not wrong, if you CAN install smartphone apps, you will at somepoint.
"You dont use a calendar?? WHAT!?!?!" 🤣🤣🤣
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, TH-cam, 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
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
"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 😅
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!
the z flip is simply a better r1 rabbit
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.
YESSS! Been wanting to see a review of the Boox Palma!
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!
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.
Boox Palma with sim card is something i never knew i wanted, let alone existed until this video
This is so something I've been thinking about. Love my hybrid smart watch with e-ink.
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.
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.
I am so glad that Ellis and Mariah are together again! They truly are the best comedy duo!
this video really showed how important it is to do competitor analysis on ur concept / product
I love studio uploads, keep going!!!!!
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. ✌️
Maria and Ellis are the best duo, I just enjoy their content
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
I've been waiting for MKBHD to do a dumb/e-ink phone comparison. This is awesome.
Sick animation at the end of the “perfect” device!
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! ❤
Love how there's absolutely no mention whatsoever of KaiOS or Windows 10 ARM. Great job guys
Yeah I was expecting some old Nokia phones
I seem to have the opposite issue. I use my phone mostly for work oriented tasks during the day (email, texting, camera, etc.), but when I get home, I tend to put it on the charger and use my previous phone on Wi-Fi as a play device until bed time.
"we looked at a few dumbphones for a couple minutes so you wont have to"
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.
The music on this channel is always a delight ❤
*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
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.
0:18 Mariah sneaking in through transparency there🤣🤣🤣
Ellis made an EXCELLENT case for the Boox and-as a fellow iPhone user-now I’m considering buying one
screen time of 7.5 hours … I think I need one of these phones 😅
Little Sad, that you didn't cover the Ratio Homescreen Launcher, I think it does most of the things you mentioned right, whilst keeping the funcionality of your Smartphone. I love the chat conversations feature especially. ^^
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.
Brilliant video! Love this idea
Great video The Studio team, you are putting out really great vibes 😊❤❤. You should have challenge who can keep dumb phone for longer 😅😅
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.
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.
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.
the Minimal Phone is coming out soon and looks super dope. the founders seem super cool too.
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 don't use a calendar"
*Marques in shambles*
Great video! I wish you had looked into the Hisense A9/A7 phones which are full Android phones, not companions, with e-ink screens.
Not sure if there is any plan for it in the Studio, but would be nice to see a new -everyday carry video 2024- soon!
Love this! Important modern day topic too!
Best hack I've seen is to just program the triple click of the action button to turn off color. When you look at the phone without color, your brain doesn't want to pick it up and it reminds you that you are trying to limit screen time. I was shocked at how well it works.
24 dollars for a widget, said the woman paying 24 dollars for two starbucks frappes on a "heavy" day
A kitchen safe is my go-to. Literally lock my phone away. Works like a charm
Wow, the Boox Palma seems very darn interesting. I like the phone.
@10.28 Prefab Sprout. Clsss 😊.
The phones....more like hobbled rather than dumb, but good overview of a bunch of alternative devices.
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.
My phone: you were on your phone 10 hours yesterday.
Me: but 8 hours was maps.
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.
I know the MKBHD channel is the main reviewing channel... But my favourite videos on this channel are when you guys review stuff too XD
5:56 Imagine it! Your taking something apart out in the field, and you need to have a reference photo for putting it back together!
4-5 hours of onscreen time split between twitch and TH-cam while at work, often in the background
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.
Please make the light phone video! Really excited for that phone ^^