With high-end smartphones costing upwards to $1,000+ these days, just whipping out your phone to check the time or jot down a note could cost you your life. Especially in medium and larger cities, criminals would think nothing of grabbing and running with your month’s rent worth of phone, or worse, stabbing you in broad daylight to get your precious.
What I suggest is using one of your old dumb or feature phones to check time, jot down a note, play a time wasting game. Wait until you are in a secure location or private area to check messages and email. Don’t go showboating your newest and priciest phone for the whole world to see. Above is my old LG505C with an orange cover (to match my old tangerine kindle hd 8 5th gen) and my old HTC Desire 510 (that was useless with Freedompop). The HTC in the shadow (took at 7 this AM) is in a smart cover that has a waffle weave pattern, that shows time and date with a variety of wallpapers.
This way, when a stranger at the bus or train asks the time, (and you aren’t wearing your smartwatch–which I usually do not, you can pull out the old phone so potential criminals to see if your phone is worth stealing, you can bring out the old feature phone. Bonus with these older phones, you can still get use out of them, even if they do not have cell service. Most have time, date, calendar and note taking ability. You can connect to home or public wifi and download a game or two, some offline apps of your choice, depending on the memory and if there is a sd card slot.
So, be safe and be smart in where you use your smartphone and consider a dumb or feature phone for everyday basics.
Brick ONeil 