3/20/2025 - Day 1
This would be day one of using my flip phone. A few things. First thing I noticed is how awful the group texts are. For example, someone sent me a regular old group text message and it delivered as if they had texted me individually, I have to then click on the MMS they send, download it, then it opens up in a group text with the other people. I can reply that way, but when they send a message it goes right back to their solo contact. So a group chat where people are texting a lot would be a nightmare. As soon as my friends text to ask if I wanna hang out, that text could be rough.
Not sure if thats a result of any group chat? Or if it’s because theres something weird with the AppleID thing.
Another thing, there’s ads on the KaiOS native apps :| and you can hardly use any non KaiOS apps. If this works out, I think it might be worth switching to either something like a cat phone, or to the Verizon flip phone that has a better OS.
Images that come in are super small and low res, can read anything anyone sends if it has text. Texting isnt too bad. I also got a text earlier and replied with a call which was well recieved, so thats exciting.
Other than that, while I was at work I just checked my email or any other messaging services on my laptop.
3/21/2025 - Day 2
Today I didn’t bring my iphone with me to work, just my flip phone. One other thing is some of my contacts didn’t sync, so I had one or two friends I wanted to text who I couldn’t reach. Another thing is I reached out to a friend I hadn’t talked to in a while, those convos can be hard because its too difficult to type everything out. I’m sure I’ll get faster on the predictive keyboard as time goes on.
Suprisingly havent had any 2FA things yet, so we’ll see how that goes. No music on here yet either. I cant even change the background, its pretty mid lol. I would consider getting a more serious flip phone if I were gonna stick with it. Especially because I dont think this one supports RCS, which I think, if I understand it right, makes texts a lot more functional. We’ll see how it goes.
3/30/2025 - Day 10
So I definitely meant to do this every day for a week so I could record my thoughts, but I forgot/didn’t have time to. I did definitely have ideas to write about but I forgot to catalog them, so I’ll do my best to remember them.
One thing I noticed was that its very hard to pay for parking in the city if you use a flip phone. I only recently (2 days ago) discovered you can still feed SOME of the meters with quarters. But a lot of it is on the app. On 3/26 I got into a bind because of this. I thought that I would be able to use the “call to pay” function, but you need to set it up on your smartphone to use it :| It will literally tell you to download the app when you call the “I dont have a smartphone” hotline. Brilliant. So I had to call a trusted adult, tell them where I was, and ask them really nicely to pay for my parking, which they did. Crisis averted.
The other thing I noticed is GPS. GPS can be tough. Now this gets into a slight discussion about the phone I’m using, and not just th concept of a flip phone in general. Now, I could just have a real GPS in my car. That covers most of the bases, just not walking directions, though, in the case of walking, my phones GPS is probably sufficient. The problem with my phones GPS is that it doesnt update based on your location. It essentially gives you a list of directions, and it shows them on the map. But it doesn’t update your location in real time and tell you where you are relative to your next turn. This means you really need to pay attention to the streets and where you are. Thats generally okay for longer or highway trips, it can be challenging in the city. Though, the more unique names in the city are helpful, sometimes its confusing on the GPS when it says “turn onto X highway” but the sign says a different name than the GPS. A lot of this comes down to the actual phone being problematic and not the “flip phone” concept. I will say though, having a GPS in the car, you could definitely get by with this phone for walking directions.
Group chats really haven’t been that bad yet either. Moslty I’m just less responsive than I otherwise could have been, but for some people, I just call instead. It’s faster and generally works better.
As for calling, this has been kind of hit or miss. The nature of the flip phone definitly encourages it, but not everyones pro calling. I notice the response to the flip phone is sort of bi-modal. I either hear “woah thats sick, I love that” or “wtf” and there’s no in between. Some people are so baffled by my choice that my friend was more apt to believe that I broke my iPhone during a manic episode than the fact that I just prefer this (I’m not bipolar, I told her that as a joke since she wouldn’t believe I just chose to have a flip phone). So with that, there’s also varrying responses to calling. My brother, for example, called me back the other day a few days after I called him, not because he was just getting to it, but because he had read the transcipt of the voicemail I left him, and because the transcription mistranscribed what I said, he didn’t realize I was telling him to call me back. I said “got something to tell you, call me back” and it transcribed it to something like “dont say I didnt tell you Im coming back” which he took to mean I was just coming home for the weekend. Later he listened to it and realized that wasnt the case and he called me back. Similiarly I called a friend the other day and she didnt answer so I left a message, she replied with the iphone auto reply of “can I call you later” but we never followed up on that call (albeit it was time sensitive so if she heard the messaged the next day it would no longer have mattered). So anyway, not everyone is pro calling. Some people like it, theyre happy to talk quick and move on and skip the texting tag, others answer like “hello?” as if theyve never had their phone ring before. So I guess thats just to say calling is generally a good option, but isn’t always effective with non-callers, and I think most of that comes down to people not seeing their voicemails. Its surprising the number of people ive called, left a message for, only to have them call back and say “oh you called, whats up?” like dude I told you what was up in the VM, so seems like nt everyone sees them, or listens to them. I know I used to have problems with my iphone where I would miss a call, get a VM, and it wouldnt show up for a few hours which is literally useless.
Anyway, most other thoughts on this extend beyond the general flip phone experiment and become more specific about the phone I was using.
So the TCL Flip 2
The battery life on this thing is killer. I use it so little it can easily go 2-4 days on one charge, which is amazing. As for the operating system, KaiOS blows. I’m sure some level of battery life comes from running a fake OS like this, but there’s some downsides. I’ve already mentioned the GPS, which may or maynot be a downside, and could be usable if you work around it. BUT, all of the apps basically shut down when you go back to the homescreen, including google maps. So if you have directions pulled up and you answer a call, boom, theyre gone. You need to relaunch the app and retype everything in (which is a pain on a flip phone!). So it really can only handle exaclty one process at a time. The same goes with the texting, calling, and contacts app. When you launch them it takes a few seconds for them to populate. Like when you open the calling app, itll take a second or two for your most recent calls to populate, and then theyll show up as the phone numbers before the app loads their names instead. So that can be confusing, you just have to know that you need to wait a bit before you can do anything, otherwise you’ll call or text the wrong person. Same with the contacts ap, if you type before its finished loading, itll wipe your search, so you have to wait, then type in. Most of that just comes down to patience, but maybe I would be interested in getting a phone that works with my carrier that has actual GPS on it, or doesnt shit the bed when you try to open an app.
Don’t get me wrong, KaiOS really hasn’t crashed on me much, and it probably wouldnt even be fair to call these “glitches,” its just kind of how the OS works. It just… is slow. Which isnt bad, and Im not sure I need all the functionality of android, but I would consider it.
My CAT phone doesnt work with my verizon sim card, so that means I cant use it which sucks. Cause I would say the CAT phone is better IF, you take off all the shit apps. The battery life of the cat phone is MUCH worse, and the phone is heavier, but it does have google maps. It also has spotify and venmo, and I know a lot of people tweak about not having their precious spotify with a flip phone. But yk what, its fine. You’ll live. You can download music, or just, enjoy the world around you. Thats what Ive been doing. I throw in a CD and enjoy my ride. I can definitely live without spotify, and maybe this is crazy to say, but I might prefer to. It almost makes everything simpler to just have a phone that calls and texts and thats it. So CAT has more functionality than I think I need. But also the resolution is nice because it does make texting a bit easier, on my TCL Flip, a single text takes up like the whole screen.
Anyway, verizon has a CAT-like phone that I might try since it seems like having a flip phone is indeed feasible. We shall see.
One more thing to add about the GPS and such, if the phone goes dark, like the screen times out, theres a chance, I think, that you lose your maps and have to start over. Thats annoying when you’re just trying to drive.
Also, damn near impossible to recieve images on this thing, they’re quite often too compressed to read if theres anything written in the photos.