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Spent all of 2021 using only an Alcatel “dumb phone”. It had an 8gb memory card for music, picked up FM radio, and had alarms and (very) basic internet access good enough to skim Wikipedia.

The thing that made me go back to a “smart” phone was that it was completely useless for group texts. If there was a dumb phone with better MMS support (and maybe a few other chat apps) I would go back instantly.

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If you're in the US, check out the Sunbeam F1[0]. It has good MMS support, emojis, and the best T9 I've used on a phone. The OS is a stripped-down version of Android with absolutely no social media apps or web access. It's a little spendy but worth every penny.

[0] https://sunbeamwireless.com/

I have been using the light phone 2 (https://www.thelightphone.com/) for the last year. I chose it specifically because it had group messaging support and nothing else really. I do use the music player on it sometimes when jogging. It might be a good option for you if group text is all you want. Anyhow, I'm starting to look for alternatives because it can't really handle image messages, and so many people communicate using pictures that it started to get quite frustrating being unable to understand what they were trying to send me. The JMP chat thing seems pretty interesting.

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