Item — HN Reader

Why do you say that? The location tracking and call/sms traffic analysis is equally doable with a dumbphone as a with smartphone. Sure, there may be more ways to track a smartphone, but using a dumbphone doesn't eliminate the cell provider's ability to track you. And all dumbphones are now E911 [0] capable. so they can get the location of a user to several hundred meters accuracy.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_9-1-1#Wireless_enhanc...

1 comments

-having battery life more than a few hours is a life changing experience

-being able to open the phone and just start typing on the dial pad to have it call someone without fishing through menus is great

-theres nothing more stylin then flipping the phone closed after a call ends, or flipping it open to answer

I agree that those things are benefits of dumbphones. But it's not obvious that's what GP was referring to as they used the word "increasingly". The aspect of smartphones vs dumbphones you mention haven't been a changing feature in the past few years. So I think it's reasonable to infer that the GP was referring to the recent NSA spying/surveillance, rather than the issues you noted.