[plug] Phone recommendations

[James Henstridge]

On Thu, 17 Sept 2026 at 12:08, gavinwc via plug <plug at plug.org.au> wrote:
>
> I know this is opening a can of worms, but looking for recommendations for a replacement phone. Why? Read on:
>
> I choose NOT to use an android or iPhone smart phone and have had a variety of 'feature' phones over the years because all I want to use it for is text and calls, with occasional hotspot and definitely Bluetooth. My current one is the Nokia 800 Tough. Gee, that's radical, I know, and being a high school teacher it always gives the teenagers a good laugh!
>
> Now, today I got a text and email from my carrier that had all the hallmarks of a scam because it screamed "your phone is going to be blocked!" But, it was legit. Because both major carriers have really dropped the ball on emergency calls, from Oct they're now going to be completely blocking any phone deemed not capable of meeting the new emergency connection regs released in 2024
>
> You people all probably know that, but thought I'd spell it out for the archives and clarity :-)
>
> Something like the Fairphone would be great, I guess, but last time I looked it wasn't affordable for me. The Nokia runs the independent (?) kaiOS, so I'm looking for something non-android and non-ios. Any handset chosen has to voLTE compatible, which my handset says it is, but it's been deemed 'unfit' anyway :-(
>
> Ideas?

I've got no specific suggestions, since feature phones don't really
appeal to me. But any phone sold locally today should be fine for the
emergency call regulations. And if that turns out not to be the case,
you've got the Australian Consumer Law on your side to get a full
refund.

It might also be worth checking if your current phone's manufacturer
has an updated firmware that fixes the defect. Your phone sends it's
firmware version when associating with a network, so the block list
can target phones with old firmware while allowing phones with fixed
firmware to connect. If that's the case for your phone, then you might
not need a replacement.

And this really is a case of your phone being defective rather than
the networks: many of the phones being blocked can do regular calls
over VoLTE just fine, but either try to do emergency calls over 3G or
won't correctly fail over to other LTE networks if their home network
is unreachable. This is the kind of thing you can't individually test
without calling 000, which you shouldn't be doing as a test. And if
there is a life threatening emergency, you really do want this stuff
to work.

James.