hpr4711 :: Second-Hand Phone

Using a "burner phone" to help relationships and peace-of-mind.

Hosted by TrumpetJohn on Monday, 2026-08-24 is flagged as Clean and is released under a CC-BY-SA license.
smartphone, feature phone, dumb phone, TCL Flip3, digital minimalism, KaiOS, apps. 2.

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Duration: 00:16:54
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general.

I have a second phone. I use it for my family, close friends, and my sanity to keep my smart phone at bay. It is inexpensive and can be extremely useful. In this podcast, I discuss "Why," "Benefits," "Drawbacks," and "Rules" that I have in place. If you are looking for a way to get away from the daily rigors of smartphone use, this may be your episode.

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Comment #1 posted on 2026-08-24 19:17:44 by candycanearter07

interesting!

i always wanted to get a flip phone for daily use, so hearing about your experience was interesting

Comment #2 posted on 2026-08-24 22:22:11 by Whiskeyjack

HPR4711 - TCL Flip phone

I have a TCL Flip phone that is just over a year old. Different carriers will change the manufacturer model names, so I'm not sure what this equates to where you are.

I believe there are two different product lines with the TCL Flip. One uses KaiOS, and the other uses the AOSP version of Android. The one I have is the AOSP version, although it doesn't actually say "Android" anywhere on it.

Overall I would rate it as a very good phone, except for the SMS client. Unfortunately, what I mainly use it for is SMS.

The problem with the SMS client is that it doesn't allow me to save drafts or have a library of standard replies, features that I had with my previous phone (Huawei). It also resets to a simple "abc" keyboard instead of kt9 (predictive text) whenever I turn the phone off, which is annoying, as it doesn't make sense to use anything other than kt9.

As for the camera, it is just fine for a phone camera. If I need to take good pictures then I have a DSLR, and there is no phone camera in existence that comes close to even a low end DSLR.

If it had a better SMS client, then for what I want out of a phone, it would be the perfect phone.

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