I hated my iPhone for a while before I made the switch to a flip phone. I was tired of mindless scrolling and the irresistible temptation of online shopping. I did the thing where you delete all of the unnecessary apps and turn the phone to grayscale to make the iPhone “dumb”. The problem is I can’t be tricked into thinking my iPhone is a feature phone. Also, flip phones are cool and I like physical buttons more than a giant touchscreen. I really missed my first ever phone, the LG Cosmos 3, and was very sad to find out that there are no comparable QWERTY phones on the market. When I began my hunt for the perfect flip phone, I was horrified to learn that 3G had been phased out by carriers. Essentially, every cool phone ever was obsolete. 

My search led me to the beautiful and fabulous world of Japanese smart flip phones or garaho. I fell in love with the Kyocera 902/3kc. My beautiful, slim, silver phone. I had so much fun downloading outdated Android apps from my computer to my phone, I felt like a tech genius. Much to my dismay, the years old battery on my used phone eventually stopped charging, and the phone was dead forever. See, I could just replace the battery, but I don’t really understand the laws about importing batteries and I don’t want to risk it. 

My next flip phone was the LG Ice Cream Smart. I knew this phone wasn’t going to really work but I got it anyway. It’s an awesome phone. It’s pink, has a touch screen as well as T9, and has the cutest customization options. It came as no surprise when the phone was hardly compatible with my network, only being able to handle basic calling and text messages some of the time. 

Finally, we arrive at the TCL Flip 4 5G. This phone is pretty ugly, but I’ve seen worse so I won’t complain too much about that. I put some stickers and charms on it to distract from the fact that it is nowhere near as cute as my last two phones. Technically speaking, this is the best phone of the three. It connects reliably to my network, was made more recently, and is more durable. It’s just so boring. I don’t like the OS, all of the apps have advertisements in them. I had hoped that unlike my last two phones, group chats would work on this phone. No, they don’t. My only requirements for a phone are kind of cute looking, working text messages, calling, navigation, and maybe a browser for quick searches. Whatever, most of my boxes are checked. 

I’m still on the hunt for my perfect phone, though I’m coming to terms with the fact that it doesn’t exist — or rather it does exist but it’s no longer supported in my country. 

Also, my life hasn’t changed much since switching to a flip phone. Around the same time I got a flip phone, I traded in my big iPad for an iPad mini and now I get all of my screen time through that. Luckily, I only have the iPad problem when I’m at home. When I leave the house, I don’t bring any distractions with me. My phone is more of a tool now, there’s nothing fun to do on it when I’m bored. I am happy that I made the switch and have no intention of going back to the iPhone.

originally posted to substack on 8/1/26