keitai - flip phone from japan

i'm trying to practice being more disconnected from the internet and social media in my life going forward - using it intentionally instead of out of habit, just because it's there

i'm using a japanese flip phone (keitai) called a sharp aquos sh-02l, it runs a barebones version of android 8, doesn't have any touch capabilities, and some things on the phone, even after changing the language, are still in japanese. these types of phones are sold exclusively (almost) in japan - it's small, light, waterproof, has a camera (though not a very good one) at the back, and has an amazing T9 keyboard to type on.

my sh-02l running the standard launcher for this phone, since it is an android, you can use whatever launcher you want, as long as it has keypad compatability

admittedly, this phone isn't a great phone by modern standards - the screen's tiny, most apps take an age to load, if they even work, and since it doesn't have google services, good luck running some 2fa apps. but i have to say, even though this isn't an objectively good phone, it suits my needs for a "dumb"phone perfectly, it texts, makes calls, can run whatsapp on there (with a workaround) and can connect with bluetooth to my car to play music. i haven't found a map app that works, and anytime i try to use spotify, it takes an age, and sometimes crashes completely. that's what having 1gb (yes, 1 whole gigabyte) of ram does to you. but with workarounds, it works for what i need it to. i download music and store it on the sd card in the phone, i've installed an app that i can use my * key as a shortcut for to have a cursor appear that i can control using the dpad in touch-only apps.

this isn't to say that you should use one - but if you're like me and want to disconnect a bit and can't seem to put a smartphone down, it's not a bad idea, it's finnicky to setup, and slow to use, but it does exactly what i need it to.

when i was setting this up, i found out a couple of things that you should know about if you're planning on doing this yourself - first - when you first get the phone, everything will be in japanese, everything, get a smartphone and translate your way through the ui to the language settings and change it there, that puts most of the ui back into english. also - this doens't come with an app store, to get one like fdroid or aurora store, you'll need to enable usb debugging and install those apps via adb in a console. it sounds scary if you're not used to using a terminal, but it's super easy to do. mine needed a specific driver to get working via usb, but once i had that it worked okay. the app i used to enable a cursor is called MATVT, from memory i sideloaded this as it was from an apk i found on github, but i might be wrong

these fill a very specific niche for me, but the signal bands these phones use are not the exact same as the bands used by carriers in europe and america, please, please check the bands of the phone you want are supported by your mobile carrier or you will have a pricey paperweight

in my time finding a dumbphone i found the dumbphone subreddit immensely useful, and devicespecifications when checking the band compatability