Three weeks ago, I switched back to the Nokia 225. The realization that Signal desktop worked with the smartphone powered off convinced me to try it again. I don’t mind only being able to do instant messaging from my computer. I’m at the computer a lot, and my family has gotten into the habit of voice calling me if they want to chat right away.

I don’t have a lot of good things to say about this device. It’s thin, it can make and recieve phone calls, it can recieve and usually send SMS, it has a potato-quality camera. It was under $100. There is absolutely nothing important on it, so if it gets siezed, stolen, or lost, I won’t panic.

Travel Overseas

I just got back from a week-long trip to London with the dumbphone. I used it to send a couple SMS messages and make a few phone calls to a friend in town.

For the most part it was fine. Finding a local SIM card was a stupid experience, but I got out with a Vodaphone SIM for £10 (plus £1 for buying the wrong SIM card initially in the bargain store). Having a dual-SIM device was pretty convenient: I could use the primary SIM for my US contacts, and the UK SIM for my local folks without the ability to text overseas.

The only real problem arose when there were QR codes to scan. And even then, I could just ignore whatever process was hiding behind the QR code. This worked right up until I had a flight canceled. We got off the plane, and nothing. Nobody was there at the gate to tell me what happens next. I got a single text message with a URL to claim a meal/hotel voucher: the mobile browser wasn’t sophisticated enough and the web server said I was a bot, refusing to tell me what my voucher was. I had no indication that I’d been rebooked, and didn’t even get an acknowledgement that the flight was cancelled, other than the obvious one when the plane turned around and went back to Denver.

United Airlines has gotten rid of customer service roles in the airport, and there’s no longer a phone number you can call, either. There’s just QR codes all over the airport. I walked the entire length of the B terminal trying to find a kiosk where I could see if I’d been rebooked, and print out a boarding pass. Nope: those are gone, too. Eventually I flagged down a gate agent who was able to tell me I’d been rebooked on a flight the next day, and printed out a boarding pass for me. They were unable to print the meal voucher or hotel voucher. I tried to take a photo of what was on their screen, but the camera on the phone was awful, so I didn’t get a workable QR code (it probably would have come out okay if I’d turned the exposure down one tick).

I could have pulled out my laptop at this point, but the battery was dead, ha! Plus, I wanted to see how it went with just the phone. Eventually, a gate agent offered to set the hotel up for me from their computer, and read off the temporary credit card number contained in the meal voucher QR code so I could write it down. So everything was doable, but I did have to involve another living, breathing human being, like in the old days. I don’t know how much it helped that I have gray hair, but I reckon it played a factor.

It seems everyone is expected to have working eyesight, a bank account and credit card, and a smartphone with a data plan.

Anyhow, it all ended okay and I’m going to keep using the Nokia because I have better things to do than screw around with the smartphone any longer.

I should note that I still have a Pixel 6 powered off in a drawer so I can deposit checks. Eventually that will stop working, and that will be a pain in the ass.