Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Using a Z Flip 5 as a minimalist phone”.
I hate how much time I spend on my phone: wake up Scroll, make coffee scroll sit at my desk scroll and the idea that I’m wasting my time isn’t even what’s bothering me cuz, I do loads of things that aren’t worthy of my time. Oh no. What bugs me is that I’m unconsciously and habitually doing it take a moment right now and try to remember the last four things you saw on a social media app. I know I couldn’t tell you so.
I’Ve set up screen time and downtime, but I’m never disciplined enough to stick to it. The obvious next solution, in my mind, is a minimal phone like the light phone, but completely giving up things like Gmail or slack on mobile, just isn’t possible for me, and I don’t want to wipe out social media completely. I just want my use of it to be more intentional. Back in August, I was at a Hands-On event for the Samsung zflip 5 spec-wise. The phone isn’t all that different from its predecessor, but there was one Hardware change that got me thinking. Could the new 3.2in front screen be the minimal phone of my dreams? The front screen on the zflip 5 is big enough, that you can actually do things on it like use a full key keyboard or search Google Maps, so I decided to do a little experiment. I would only use the front screen of the zflip 5 as my daily driver for a week and purposely not install any social media apps on the front screen.
It would allow me the full phone. I need by flipping the thing open when I need it, but the minimal phone I want for everything else now. I realized that Samsung has been trying to sell foldables as just this a way to focus and shut out the digital world since their Inception. So a lot of this is just a test of marketing bait, but I really hope that they’re on to something, because I hate how much time I spend on my phone, the first part of this experiment was setting some rules during the day. It was exclusively front screen outside of work emergencies and at night I got one scrolling sesh after dinner is to catch up on news and Friends.
Next I set up my screen. Samsung has an app called goodlock and within that app is a launcher for the front screen that allows you to put shortcuts to any app on it. I put only my essentials on there then I made some tweaks to make the home screen pretty, and I set the order of the the pages which includes my phone weather, calendar and alarm Pages. The best part about a small screen is you can do all of the things the worst part about a small screen is you’re, doing all of the things on a small screen, which inherently makes doing all the things a lot harder very quickly. I had a few frustrations.
First, the keyboard, the obvious answer to a small keyboard is swipe to type, but even with the slim width of this phone, reaching the top left of the keyboard was tough when I was using one hand and my accuracy was uh non-existent. So then, I was typing with both hands, which made my accuracy better, but it was still slow. So after a few days of slamming on the small keys, I became a full-time voice to texter. Also, I could not figure out a way to get gboard as my default keyboard on the front screen, despite it being my default on the inside.
So if anyone has a fix for that, please let me know the other issue with a small screen and a full keyboard is that when the keyboard is up, it’s the whole screen, I’m someone who is often replying to multiple points in one text or referencing back To a text to see how something is spelled so not being able to see past sex was a pain in the butt and then taking photos outside of selfies is a whole another thing to get used to when the camera is right. Next to the screen, you’re just blindly pointing the lens at objects, and it feels a lot like setting up a GoPro in 2012. It’S a total guess as to what will actually make it into the frame and then there’s some things.
You can’t do on the front screen for reasons I’ll, never understand. The most annoying was not being able to make a call to a business from Google Maps hitting the call button triggers an open phone to continue prompt. Even if you headphones in. You also can’t change what Bluetooth device you’re connected to adjust Wi-Fi pairings or see your full contact list in the phone page. The contact list thing really. I really don’t understand that one that like is it a safety feature? What what is it Samsung? I feel like there’s just like a switch that you can switch on, and it would allow me to do that so if you could switch that switch for me, that’d be awesome thanks.
Okay, none of those are deal breakers for normal people who are just going to open their phones, but they are for someone as crazy as me, who wants nothing to do with the internal 6.7 in display? Ultimately, I learned that using a small screen takes intention and a lot of patience. Every swipe does something. Every window only shows a small part of the story, and there is no going fast when you can only do one thing at a time.
Intentionality was my goal. All along and getting used to this life was tough, but once I did it worked, I could do all of the Necessities without the r ractions. I noticed it working the most on commutes. When instinctively, I would pull my phone out of my pocket, but without being able to open the device, there really wasn’t much to do on it, so I would just put it away after 2 days of this routine.
I was doing it less and less. I also noticed that the speaker phone quality on this phone was really good. I mean was I that person talking on speaker phone in public? Yes, I was, but no one. I was on the call with notice just everyone else around me, but as present as I started to feel I also I don’t know, I just got this kind of sad feeling while doing this, not because I miss social media, but because I started to tune into Everyone else’s phone habits. This is nothing new and features like screen.
Time were released years ago to help us all. You know better manage how much time we spend staring at our screens, but it is alarming to watch folks being so completely consumed still. So if you don’t have $ 11,000 to spend on a phone – and you two want to use your phone less, there are other solutions that don’t cost nearly as much on both IOS and Android.
There are screen time settings, even even if you dismiss the time warning it’ll, make you aware of how much time you’re spending on an app and having awareness is a great place to start. If you are an Android, there are many launchers that are designed to be minimal and grab less of your attention. This is IND, distract minimalist launcher by indistractable by default. It makes your home screen monotone and all apps are listed by name without icons. It also shows you how much time you’ve already spent on that app in one day on iOS, there are similar apps, one of which is blank which allows you to create minimalist widgets for your home screen. It too takes away app icons, which should grab less of your attention.
Both of these apps come readymade with the option to subscribe for more features, this one’s crazy and I’m not sure anybody would actually do this. But what if every night, you reorganized your apps, so that your muscle memory to where your Instagram app is wouldn’t work? When you instinctively open your phone and go to scroll, I think someone should make an app that does this it’ be only for the very brave, but I’m ready. So if that exists, let me know down below, and if it doesn’t I mean somebody somebody’s got to build that someone’s got to create that hell for all of us. There are more practical Solutions as well like not bringing your phone into your bedroom or using a physical alarm clock or asking a roommate or partner to hold you accountable when they see that you’ve been scrolling for hours. I do have to send this zflip 5 back, which is sad, but I hope to still use my screen Less in 2024. So what? What are your resolutions? What are you all doing anyway? Thank you so much for a great 2023.
I appreciate you so much. I feel like this year. I have gotten so much more comfortable with this whole content. Making thing – and I know for you, you folks, you might be like Becca you’ve always been comfortable, but I don’t know something like clicked this year for me. So thank you. So much for being along for the ride.
Thank you for watching all these videos for allowing me to do this. I appreciate you so much and I am wishing you nothing but joy and good health and I don’t know just like the best 2024 possible. I appreciate you so much okay happy New Year, all be well bye.
Oh no! Oh go! Oh my God! That was so embarrassing! Oh no! .