It's hard to imagine a world where you didn't have a smartphone. Whether you had a mobile device growing up or not, we've all grown used to having a phone, camera, note taker, music player, internet browser and game console all tied into one device.
But one woman wanted to get rid of all those functions and features and get back to the good old days of having a phone that just made and received calls.
Justine Haupt has unveiled why and how she concocted her fully functioning, distraction-free mobile phone that also has a rotary dial for added effect.
Most people under the age of 20 won't have seen a phone with a rotary dial unless they were visiting their grandparents or browsing through a charity shop.
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But Justine is here to show you that they can still be cool in 2020.
The astronomy instrumentation engineer at Brookhaven National Laboratory wrote on her site: "Why a rotary cellphone? Because in a finicky, annoying, touchscreen world of hyperconnected people using phones they have no control over or understanding of, I wanted something that would be entirely mine, personal, and absolutely tactile, while also giving me an excuse for not texting.
"The point isn't to be anachronistic. It's to show that it's possible to have a perfectly usable phone that goes as far from having a touchscreen as I can imagine, and which in some ways may actually be more functional."
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It's hardly classified as handy considering how bulky it is, but if you have big pockets then this won't be a problem.
The space engineer said her phone has a real, removable antenna with an SMA connector, that offers excellent reception; nearly instantaneous, high resolution of signal strength and battery level thanks to a LED bargraph; and a power switch that is an actual slide switch.
"No holding down a stupid button to make it turn off and not being sure it really is turning off or what," Justine writes.
She's installed dedicated speed-dial buttons that can call her husband as well as a few other nearest and dearest at the touch of a button.
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The rest of the people have to be called via the rotary dial.
That works by putting your finger in the numbered hole that you wish to start with, then dragging the dial down to zero and then letting it reset before going to the next number. It can be pretty tiresome if you're doing that all the time, but it's clear Justine doesn't mind.
She's uploaded a step-by-step process of how she put the whole phone together for anyone else who's wanting to ditch the distractions.
Featured Image Credit: Justine HauptTopics: News, Technology