LoFone E Ink smartphone offers WhatsApp, Spotify and navigation despite focus on minimalism
www.notebookcheck.net
The LoFone is marketed as a minimalist 'dumbphone' that comes with an economical E Ink display and completely dispenses with distractions such as social networks. Unlike most direct competitors, apps such as WhatsApp and Spotify will still be available.
  • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    291·
    4 months ago

    I don’t really see the issue. Minimalism is a sliding scale.

    Just because the design goal was for it to be more minimalist than a typical Android/iOS phone doesn’t mean they have to go full-on “NO. It’s only for phonecalls and maybe SMS!”

    Playing music isn’t particularly “maximalist”, and WhatsApp certainly isn’t (people in the US need to understand that WhatsApp is basically SMS for most of the world). Maybe maps is, but it’s optional anyway so who cares.

    This device looks very cool to me. But there’s no way it won’t cost an absolute fortune, which kills it IMO.

    • KuroiKaze@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      4 months ago

      Even in USA nobody ever SMS me. Messenger and insta are primary with WhatsApp and signal sometimes being relevant and wechat for the Chinese community.

      • nexas_XIII@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        4 months ago

        Crazy, most people use SMS with Messenger as the go to for big groups for me (in USA). No one I know uses WhatsApp

          • nexas_XIII@lemm.eeEnglish
            3·
            4 months ago

            I’m just giving anecdotal evidence, just like you gave 🤷‍♂️ I’m not promoting one way of communicating vs another.

          • EngineerGaming@feddit.nlEnglish
            1·
            4 months ago

            Unencrypted is not the thing that bothers me - after all, Telegram is so popular, so not like most people even care. What bothers me is that you still need to pay for each one! You have to edit the texts to fit into a tiny arbitrary character restriction or else you’s be charged for a second message! Why is data do relatively cheap, but those messages are still overpriced?

            • wingsfortheirsmiles@feddit.ukEnglish
              3·
              4 months ago

              Mobile plans as standard here (in the UK) offer SMS for free, can’t remember when they used to routinely charge tbh. But I think I only text my dad as he’s very old school, everyone else is Signal/WhatsApp/Telegram

            • KuroiKaze@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              4 months ago

              Huh I haven’t met anyone on telegram yet. Agreed if you somehow didn’t have infinite SMS in your plan you are taking an L

              • EngineerGaming@feddit.nlEnglish
                1·
                4 months ago

                Unlimited SMS here are rare, and my carrier in particular does not have them at least on the lower-end plans. I rarely notice though.

                Telegram is popular here, especially among youth - my university groupchats are there, for example. Whatsapp is still probably bigger though.

  • Wotan@lemmy.worldEnglish
    81·
    4 months ago

    I am afraid there is nothing like minimalism when we talk about mobile phones. It is basically all or nothing. I mean, it seems like everybody only thinks about social media apps but I don’t care about social media, I want my phone to run apps that control my smart home appliances, contain my public transport tickets, my ID card, my air tickets and other such convenient stuff. Most of these apps basically only exist for iOS or Android and some of them only work when downloaded from the official stores. So any phone achieving minimalism by using custom OS is just unusable for me and is equal to a dumb phone.

  • solrize@lemmy.worldEnglish
    412·
    4 months ago

    Minimalism and smartphone don’t belong in the same sentence. Sorry! Just make a 1990s style dumbphone with physical buttons and a removable battery before you talk about minimalism, please.