Some Tips and Tricks for the Kyocera 902KC!

The Kyocera 902kc/903kc is a Japanese flip phone; pretty much the only model functional in the US. I've had the Kyocera 902KC for about a week now, and have been tinkering around with it quite a bit (maybe a little too much). I thought I'd share some of the stuff I've figured out along the way. Full disclosure, I'm not a tech guy and don't 100% know what I'm doing, part of the reason I'm posting this is to hopefully help others but also to get some feedback if I could be doing something better

• There are two hidden settings you can enable by using a screen-mirroring program like scrcpy or vysor. These programs just let you navigate your device through your computer by using a mouse. You can use the mouse to click on the status bar and drag down the notification panel, where you can access the settings through the gear button. From there, you can turn on Night Light in the display settings, which tints the screen orange at night to make it easier on the eyes, and you can also turn on Auto Rotate Screen in accessibility settings, which lets you rotate the screen by tilting the device, which comes in handy because the narrow screen often cuts off words or and even breaks certain websites.

• Screen mirroring software can also help with logging in and setting up certain apps, and saves you from having to manually type long urls (thank god for ctrl+v).

• You can enable Write now in the language settings, which lets you to both dial a number and write text straight from the home screen, which you can then search online, send as an sms or email etc.

• There are no volume adjustment keys. Use clickclick (apk has to be sideloaded) to remap the keys. I've heard suggestions to map it to the TV and Camera buttons, but then you lose the ability to switch to numbers/japanese keyboard, cycle backwards, and 'go back' in the symbol and emoji menu. Instead, I suggest mapping only to the 'Call' button, with single click for vol+ and double click for vol-. Set the double-click speed to 'fastest' in clickclick settings so that you can lower the volume faster. Also, the 'Key Mapper' app isn't compatible.

• Don't get TT9 on this device, it might make you want to pull your hair out. Most notably, the backspace doesn't work on certain browsers and fields, so when you try to delete letters it will deselect or even close the app. This still happens sometimes with the stock keyboard, but overall I think it makes for a more consistent and less frustrating experience. TT9 also breaks some functionalities like Write now and stock apps like notes and browser. I read somewhere about being able to remap the delete key in the settings, but I found no such option. I would stick to the default keyboard—turn on Wildcard spelling in the settings (predictive text system in which you press right d-pad to indicate the length of words. Simpler than it may sound) and remember to use the camera button to cycle backwards (ie to type a number you can hit a key and hit back instead of cycling through every option first). It's not the fastest way to type, but that's kinda the point, right?

• The hotkeys for the stock browser make for a pretty snappy experience, but a third party browser is almost certainly more secure. Mull seems to be decent, and setting it as the default browser and being able to search straight from the home screen via 'Write now' beats the built-in browser button in terms of speed. The downside of that being, you can only search via google.

• If you want to look at sites like twitter and reddit, lightweight frontends like nitter and teddit work well, but viewing them on a flip phone prevents you from wasting too much time. You could block such sites on other devices to make this your only source of exposure. Also, a lot of news sites have text-only feeds that work well on small screens.

• Every non-number key (especially the custom keys) can be long-pressed to bring up different menus and features. it's useful for navigating, though some buttons end up doing nothing if you debloat. they could be remapped but doing so would interfere with some of the aforementioned navigation features

• You can remove bloatware (the carrier-specific apps, nonfunctional apps like fm radio etc.) with universal android debloater. Use it alongside the package name viewer apk to figure out what you want to delete. It allows you to restore what you uninstall, so it's relatively safe. Be careful with what you remove though, for example removing the stock calendar seems to break caldav sync functionality for 3rd party calendars as well.

• There are currently no better alternative launchers, at least I haven't found any (ox shell does have potential tho). The hotkey shortcuts on the default launcher provide the most functions. A launcher may be an option if you really want to strip down the appearance and usability of the device

• Hold down the middle d-pad button while using the pointer to turn on scroll mode. This is also useful for those apps in which you want to side-swipe on objects to delete, queue them up etc. Also, when taking photos, use the side button with your thumb instead of the middle d-pad, or you'll likely end up with your fingers in the frame

• I took the lack of google services as an opportunity to distance myself from some of their services. I used nextcloud and a free account from a provider to sync files, contacts and calendar. Logging in and setting up these services was a bxxxx—the main problem being that the stock browser breaks the popup log-in website. For nextcloud, I had to go to github and download an older apk (around 3.x.x.?), then spam the broken login button and wait until a "revert to old login method" prompt appeared. There is probably a better way to do this, maybe download an even earlier build or something idk. After logging in, you can update the app through an app store like Aurora. For logging into Davx5 (which you would need for bridging the cloud service to your apps) you can get around it a little easier by setting a non-stock browser like Mull as the default browser in system settings.

• the jp messaging app Line only launches from app store and the special keys dock, not from the app drawer. It's the only app I encountered with this issue, but if an app doesn't launch, try putting it on a custom key.

That's about it, I'll update if I think of any more. Shoutout to this great keitai guide as well