Nokia 2780 Flip

Originally Posted 7/6/25

Why?

I decided to try and get a flip phone because, as I mentioned in my On Smartphones post, I feel like too much of my time has been sort of consumed by my smartphone. Anytime there's a lull in anything, I pull it out to be on it. And... I don't like that. Especially if I'm out with friends. So, I wanted to get something that forced me to be on my phone less.

Now, unfortunately, I think a smart phone is too needed nowadays where I can't switch over to this thing full time. Even things like parking requires an app. So at the moment I'm trying this out with two phone numbers - one for my smartphone, one for the flip phone. The flip phone I'm largely using on weekends when I'm out and about, and with Michelle or friends. Usually I have my smartphone in the car for music and navigation, or to pay for parking places.

Why the Nokia 2780?

I liked the look of it, and it seemed like online people considered it a decent phone. The one most folks seemed to like was the CAT S22, however when I was looking to get a "dumb" phone they seemed sold out in a lot of places, so I went with the Nokia.

What do you think about it?

Frustrations

Honestly there's been a number of things that have made this experience less than ideal.

The first being finding a carrier that worked with the Nokia. The phone was unlocked, so I figured it'd work with any carrier. I use Visible on my main phone, so wanted to use it on the Nokia as well, and looking around online it seemed possible. However once I got the phone, I quickly realized it wasn't. Visible doesn't view that the phone is compatible with their network, and so I couldn't even get a sim card for it. I then tried Straight Talk, however also found out it did not work with the phone. Currently I'm on Mint Mobile with it, which is fine, but the whole process was just really frustrating.

Importing contacts is a bit... weird. You can do a manual sync from Google Contacts which imports all the contacts from whatever account you have. They don't stay up to date, and if you ever re-import stuff (say you added someone else to Google Contacts), it duplicates everything that already existed. Not ideal. You can also sign into a Google account to keep the contacts synced, so as you make changes it changes them in Google Contacts as well (or vice versa), however it doesn't import contact photos that way, for some reason.

Another thing that bothered me is, despite having a USB-C port, it only charges if the USB cable is plugged in in a specific orientation. So yeah, if you notice it's not charging, try flipping over the USB-C plug.

The next two things are related to texting. First, I had a hard time being able to text any of my contacts on the phone. People could text it, and I could reply, but if I tried to create a new text message to someone from my contacts, it'd tell me the number was invalid. I think this is because I didn't have "+1" in front of any of my contacts in Google Contacts. After adding that, it seems to work fine. It's weird too because if someone texted me that I had in contacts, the phone recognized it as the same number (without the +1), but yeah I couldn't initiate texts without originally, and it's been fixed since adding "+1" to everyone.

The last thing that was annoying is when you're texting, it does this predictive text thing, where instead of the "old fashioned" way of texting, where you press the same number repeateadly to get to whatever letter, you need to press the number, then use the left and right buttons to select the correct letter, press the next number, use left and right buttons to select the correct letter, and repeat. Incredibly frustrating. Luckily, I found this video which explains how to disable this and make it work the "old school" way. Instructions below:

The Good

Despite what I said above, I do like the phone. The biggest thing I'd do differently is more research into which phones actually worked with Visible, or not. The rest was sort of growing pains, but I've gotten used to. So far the phone does its job - lets me call and text, and I'm not pulling out my phone nearly as much. People also seem to get a kick seeing a flip phone again. It's also so satisfying being able to flip the phone shut when I'm done talking with folks.

Wrap Up

Overall I'm happy with the phone, and I've been happy to use my smartphone less. Love to hear though if anyone else has done something similar, or has their own thoughts!