I left my amazing Xperia 1 V for a KY-42C flip phone
This was originally going to be a blog post detailing how I've set up my flip phone, but the background grew too long for one post. Read my experience/a tutorial for setting up!
Before I got my flip phone, I was using a Sony Xperia 1 V. It was great - headphone jack, microSD card slot, great cameras, good software, all-day battery life. I have a history of breaking phones, so the Xperia's improved durability compared to my previous phones (plastic back, no fold like the Z Flip) was also a major selling point. I imported the UK model so I could install LineageOS once Sony stopped updating the phone to make it last as long as possible.
I used to bike with my phone in my pocket often. I always wore cargo shorts or sweat shorts, so the phone could fit with ease, even when I had headphones plugged in. Unfortunately, the headphone jack came loose because the phone kept getting pushed into my bone, putting repeated pressure on the headphone plug. After a few weeks of dealing with this, I ordered the part off of eBay. It took me a while to find this part - I had called a nearby uBreakiFix shop, asking for sources and I had scoured the internet, but this was the only seller that had non-phone body/frame parts I could find. That worried me slightly for the future.
My Xperia, before
Repairs can go wrong in a lot of ways, especially for a first-timer phone repair-er like me. Despite this, I was able to replace the headphone jack easily, with the help of Sony's convenient engineering (the headphone jack is like a LEGO piece!) and a teardown video online. However, something went a little wrong upon putting it back together. I started to put the screws back in and realised that the screws came in two different lengths. There had been nothing about this in the video or the comments, and I hadn't noticed this previously, so I had no idea which screw went where. I ended up guessing, which resulted in two stripped screws from me over-tightening. I learned two lessons before the phone was back together - always note screw sizes, and be much more careful with tightening screws. This was nowhere near the first time I had ended up with stripped screws. I should've learned this lesson years ago.
Getting these stripped screws out was difficult. I won't go into too much detail, but my efforts ended with a Dremel. I should've stopped far before buying a handheld saw; maybe I should've stopped when the rubber band trick didn't work. But I couldn't close the phone because one of the stripped screws stuck out like a sore thumb. Once closed, a plethora of issues with the phone remained. On a good day, the earpiece, cameras, flashlight, brightness sensor and accelerometer don't work. Bad days are much, much worse.
My Xperia, after
The earpiece being non-functional was somewhat of an issue; I needed earbuds or headphones to make a call. On bad days, I couldn't even make calls. After somewhere between two weeks and a month, I gave in and went to a phone repair store. I wouldn't recommend that location, but they were able to get the other screw out and inform me that the reason behind all of my problems was not a cable that had come loose as I had suspected, but instead it was a screw. A screw that I had unknowingly driven straight through the motherboard. Removing that screw might not have fixed the issue, and would have been very risky.
At this point, I was sick of not being able to consistently make phone calls. I had been unable to answer multiple important calls from doctors, but I also just wanted that convenience back. I couldn't afford another phone, though, and I wanted to end my track record of damaging phones once and for all.
I've been down the dumbphone rabbit hole before. I've browsed through many photos of Asian flip phones with cute stickers and charms, rugged CAT phones that could withstand a wrecking ball and old Nokias that could probably do the same. This time, I chose a Keitai phone because I didn't want the price, touchscreen or rugged aesthetic of the CAT phone, wanted Android (for the Transit app, BlueBubbles, Google Fi, etc), 4G (which removed the possibility of a Blackberry) and the quality of a phone not created for children or seniors. My first phone was a crappy flip phone sold by AT&T, and it felt awful to use.
My new KY-42C
I ended up with the Kyocera Digno KY-42C for a few reasons. Obviously, I needed something that worked in America. The Digno has bands for my carrier, Google Fi. It has a USB-C port, an IP rating, a microSD slot, but no headphone jack. It looks nice and runs Android 10, which isn't too outdated. I like it so far, but I haven't managed to get data working on it, so I have a data-only SIM in my Xperia and carry both. The Xperia is in my backpack, though, while the Digno gets my front pocket. I don't know what the situation will be once I figure out the data on the flip phone, but for now, this works.
Contact me: wiggle@mailbox.org