I forgot to set my morning alarm so I popped out of bed in a panic today. I did not sleep well by any stretch of the imagination so I'm feeling rather 'hungover' right now. *Anyway* I wanted to make a blog post about my contuining phone issues. 

I've been having a series of phone-based misadventures ever since the death of my Samsung Z Flip 5. I've been facisnated by the Dumb Phone movement and spent weeks lurking r/dumbphones trying to find the right device for me. I end up trying out the HMD Barbie phone and a Kyocera Digno 902KC. The Barbie phone was cute, and the Digno was really cool, but I utlimately came to the conclusion that I went too dumb too fast. I kept getting stuck on things like my need for Microsoft Authenticator and an anxiety about not being able to communicate quickly. 

_{There was an extremely minor incident at work where I took my HMD to send a quick text and recieved a warning to be 'mindful' with my phone usage. It was so light anyone else would hesitate to call it a 'warning' but it's me so I'm still thinking about it 2 weeks later. It's so absurd to me that it happened the first time I used a dumbphone at work. I mean... ?? I guess T9 typing was taking a hot second but still... oof...}

I think that the Digno and the HMD were the most helpful when I was at home. They kept me from spending my little free time doomscrolling at legnth which I really the smartphone based issue I was trying to solve. I get enough doomscroll time on my laptop when things are slow at work. 

Anyway... I sold off the other phones and put that money into a new device.

My new Jelly Star Mini came in on Friday. I've only used it for the weekend - during which time I didn't leave my apartment. Today will be my first day 'driving' (which ultimately doesn't mean much because I do so little lol). My thoughts on the little guy so far are very postive. It is just a small android phone but that's exactly what I wanted. It's small enough to make mindless scrolling feel like a chore but still has the features I need for communication and convenience. Typing isn't as much of a pain as I expected. I still flub my passwords sometimes but it's not a huge deal. Swipe texting works very well. 

I'm very happy that the JellyStar has NFC and a phsyical finger print scanner. Those were the top two best features on my Z Flips so I'm very happy to have them in a phone with a similar size factor. The size of the Jelly was a major selling point just because I value 'pocket-ability' or the ability of my phone to fit in my pockets and purses. The Z Flips were such a game changer for me for their ability to fit FULLY within the pockets of my pants.

In the interim between shipping off the flipphones and recieving the Jelly I switched back to my NU20 smart phone which is a BEAST in terms of size. Seriously, the thing has no NFC capibilty and possesses a camera that can be outdone in quality by a 2DS. It's got no buisness being that big. 

A few other things I love about it; 

• The translucent plastic design is very good.
• The back LEDs. I'm very smitten with them esp. the ability to mute the phone but keep the LEDs on for notifcations. 
• Also; the LED indicator on the front of the phone. This was one of the best features on Samsung phones- fight me.
• Programable side button!!!!!!!!

Now, I don't love how thicc the Jelly is. BUT, it's a fair trade off for it's size. It's also much heavier than I expected it to be but I suppose that's to be expected when you cram an entire smart phone into such a small profile. 

I'm only really able to engage in these little phone experiments becuase I have a job now that-- unlike my last one-- doesn't require me to be reachable on Zoom Workplace 24/7 all hours of the day and evening. I can unplug myself from my work e-mail because there is no expectation for anything to be addressed outside of my work hours, and there's no e-mails or information I need to 'catch up' on before I go in. I only mention this all because there is no way in hell these phones would be viable for my everyday use 6 months ago. 

So far, I'm very happy with my little JellyStar. Maybe now I can think about replacing my Retroid.