Hey! I’ve been keeping intermittent tabs on the Light Phone since 2018 or so, but one thing or another has kept me from taking the plunge. I shifted to a flip phone around the end of 2019, which helped somewhat (though I hated T9 texting, and I still found myself on YouTube or FiveThirtyEight or whatever way too often on its tiny, tiny screen), but I had to switch back to my iPhone to use its hotspot during the year in quarantine and haven’t seriously tried ditching it since, despite feeling more and more of my life draining into waste. I need to make some kind of serious change in my technological interface with the world, and of the options I’ve seen, the Light Phone seems the best, but I have a few major reservations.

First, I’m concerned about my experience texting with it. I mostly keep in touch with my friends and family that way and would prefer to keep it at about its current level, but I’ve heard mixed things about the Light Phone’s keyboard and am worried that with hands as huge as mine (seriously, like Liszt-hands) I’ll be constantly frustrated. Can anyone comment on how they’ve made it work, or haven’t? I’m skeptical of how much I’d like using the text-to-speech function, but I’ve seen a lot of positive talk about it on here and am definitely curious to try it out. I’ve also heard that group chats— which I use a lot— can be pretty buggy, so I’d be curious for more information on that score.

Second, I’m concerned about the current lack of a calendar application. I’ve seen on this Reddit that one is in the works, but having access to that is pretty critical for me and I don’t know if I can make a switch before that’s a guarantee (though I’m open to the possibility of just carrying around an analog personal planner or something temporarily). Does anyone know anything more specific about when that’ll become available?

Third and last, I’m concerned about the price. I really do like what I’ve read/heard about the Light Phone and really do think it looks like the best option for me, but it’s difficult to justify spending $300 on just about anything right now. I just managed to finally pay off my credit card bill, which was a relief, but I’m still very uncomfortably close to being broke and would probably have to dip back in to using the credit card (which I try to only use in emergencies, though at this point my phone addiction might qualify) to pay for this. I’ve seen the sale threads in this subreddit, but my strong inclination is still to buy a phone new and directly from Light for a variety of reasons. I think it could very possibly be worth it, but not having ever used one myself, I know it could also very possibly not be. Does anyone have any thoughts which might push me one way or another?

Also, as a side note, I’m curious to hear about people’s experiences using the map and podcast apps. How would you compare them to their smartphone equivalents in terms of usability?

Thanks for reading through this whole post if you’ve made it this far. I know my ruined attention span would start to skim after the second paragraph, even though I used to read like breathing. I want that back.