5 Most Convincing Reasons an Old-School Flip Phone Is Better Than an iPhone 12, Ranked
Photo: Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images

5 Most Convincing Reasons an Old-School Flip Phone Is Better Than an iPhone 12, Ranked

Skip the preorder this year, and respect the burner

5. You can actually hang up on someone with authority

Nothing caps off a vicious read quite like that incomparably satisfying clap of cheap Chinese plastic. The red END CALL button could never reach the pettiness levels of the Jurassic-era dumbphone.

4. It’s harder to surveil

Listen, COINTELPRO ain’t ever cease, okay? Even if you’re not on the block like those boys from The Wire, the feds don’t need to know you’re using janky stream sites to binge Love Island from your mobile device. Want to entertain yourself on a flip phone? Just fire up Snake and stay your ass off the grid.

3. It comes with a charger

Unlike the iPhone 12, which will questionably be sold without a charging cable of its own, your throwback alternative comes with a thick-ass brick to plug into a power strip and cover like three sockets. Everything is wireless now but that doesn’t mean we should be grifted out of basic necessities. We’re being fed scraps, sheeple!

2. It’s durable

We’re pretty sure you could drop a flip phone off the damn Willis Tower (it’ll always be the Sears Tower to us) and it’ll keep on chugging. Meanwhile, the other day we shattered an iPhone screen when it fell from knee height to a carpeted floor.

1. You’ve got an actual selection

The options were truly limitless for flip phones, from the Motorola MicroTac in the ’80s to the Olympian of flip phones, T-Mobile Sidekick, in the 2000s. (Okay, maybe this is more like a cartwheel phone.) As for iPhone 12, well, you can choose between big-ass phone and little-ass phone. Knock yourself out!

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