Tired of Identical Smartphones, One Writer Went Looking for a Dumbphone and Found Self-Expression

Three years ago, bored and a little nostalgic, a writer for Esquire Singapore bought a used BlackBerry 9900 on Carousell. As a teenager they had dabbled with a BlackBerry but were really an iPhone user, so they had never lived with one properly. Holding it again brought back small physical memories: flicking a flip phone open with a thumb, sliding a screen up to reveal a T9 number pad, the click of a physical keyboard. That purchase started a personal search for a phone that looked and felt like something other than everyone else's.

The writer's argument is that phones once did one job, communication, and then did far more, with better cameras, powerful chips and longer battery life. Yet, they say, every smartphone now looks alike, a design that has been the default for close to two decades. They trace the sameness to the iPhone's 2007 release, which upended the industry with its touchscreen and lack of a keyboard and became the gold standard. Apart from cameras added to the back, the writer argues, the smartphone has barely changed.

It was not always that way. The writer recalls American high-school girls with T-Mobile Sidekicks, finance workers with BlackBerrys, and the wealthy with exotic-skinned, diamond-encrusted Vertu handsets. In 2004 Nokia launched a fashion line of three phones aimed mainly at women who wanted to express themselves through accessories, one nicknamed the "lipstick phone." The Pussycat Dolls and Jennifer Lopez had them. Paris Hilton, in the early 2000s, bedazzled hers.

The search for an alternative began on the r/dumbphones subreddit. The writer's criteria: the phone had to be unique and customisable, yet still run basics such as internet banking and ride-hailing apps. They bought a CMF Phone 1 and a Motorola Razr Ultra. The Razr Ultra is a dual-screen touchscreen flip phone but lacked the tactility of its predecessors; the CMF Phone 1 was modular and customisable. Both still felt too modern and too much like an iPhone.

Then came keitai, Japanese flip phones that typically have a physical T9 keypad and a D-pad, though newer ones can have touchscreens. Japan is the only market still making them, and Kyocera and Sharp released their latest models, the Kyocera Digno A202KC and Sharp Aquos A205SH, in late 2022. The writer now owns four keitai and two Korean equivalents. Most run a stripped-down Android that can install WhatsApp, Spotify and Instagram, though their small size means slower processing and shorter battery life. The writer says they feel chic holding one, that the phones start conversations at parties and events, and that snapping one shut after a call is deeply satisfying.

The costs are real. The writer held up queues when PayNow would not load properly, or at all, and could not install an e-sim while overseas. They treat that as the price of self-expression.

In mid-2025, pre-orders opened for the Zinwa Q25, a "BlackBerry phone" from Zinwa Technologies, built by pairing an existing BlackBerry Q20 chassis with a custom motherboard. It keeps the Q20's backlit QWERTY keyboard and trackpad and adds Android 14, a camera, battery, nano-SIM and USB-C. The writer was sceptical, since there were few live demos or official channels, until the YouTube channel Returning Retro interviewed the founder. They placed a USD400 preorder, and the phone arrived in January 2026 as advertised. After an adjustment period to the keyboard, it became their daily driver. They bedazzled it, say they spend less time doomscrolling on the squarish screen, and credit it with improving their productivity.

The writer sees a wider trend of independent makers building modern dumbphones around productivity and function. Clicks, known for its QWERTY phone cases, plans to release the Clicks Communicator at the end of 2026, while iKKO and Unihertz are preparing the MindOne and the Titan 2 Elite. Whether that adds up to a real market remains to be seen.